CG Generalist Bjørn Blaabjerg Sørensen has created a “superMegaFK” system that he found useful for quadruped rigs in Maya. It is basically an IK rig that has an FK rig on top of it. The Ik/FK relationship is not a switch, but rather, in addition to.
It’s basically an FK chain working on top of an IK chain making switching and choosing a thing of the past
What is interesting is this setup doesn’t work with matrix nodes at all. Rather it uses a simple additive system. It is all based on local-space transforms.
With the SuperMegaFK system, moving the IK controller will move the FK chain, but the FK chain is still able to move independently of the IK controller.
The SuperMegaFK system will give animators more flexibility, as they don’t have to switch between IK or FK, both the IK and FK systems are on top of one another.
Bjørn notes that he will be updating his quadruped scripts in the coming days to accommodate for the SuperMegaFK system, so stay tuned.
Jason
Hey Lester, I’ve been trying to work this one out. I cant seem to figure out how he gets the FK controllers to follow the fk joints after constraining their offset grp to the IK joints.
Do you have a scene or a tutorial of your own which makes this build a little more in depth?
Bjørn
Hi Jason,
The FK offset controller groups are constrained to the skinjoint chain, not the fk chain. the rotation of the IK chain is connected to the FK offset groups.