Stephen Mann uses hierarchies and parenting to make a simplified foot rig in Maya.

There are many ways to create a foot rig, which allows you complete control over planting and raising parts of the character’s feet. A common term is a ‘reverse foot lock,’ in which a chain of joints runs counter to the flow of the original joints in the leg and the foot.

Here, Stephen Mann remakes an older foot-rigging tutorial. It is a simplified version of the reverse foot lock that only uses IK, hierarchies, and parenting.

Mann previously covered things like setting a preferred angle for IK in another tutorial that proves helpful when setting up a leg and foot rig. Visit that tutorial here.