Hey everyone, I’m still pretty green to Blender. I wanted to get into it and play around with some animating and posing of models.
I downloaded a rigged Lego Minifig from bricksinmotion. I was able to get the textures I wanted onto the rig, attached pieces to it and got it all working and moving. The issue I am having is that I want to rotate the head left and right, but the IK handle will not rotate, therefore not rotating the head.
It appears that the IK is set to a follow (I believe that what it is). Where ever I move the helper, the head looks. I just can’t figure out how to get it to rotate, as if it were moving its head left and right.
Thanks for taking the time to look this over and even more so if you can get me the solution.
Post a blend file to pasteall.org/blends then post the link to your file here, we cannot guess what might be wrong! What is an IK handle? Do you mean an IK target bone?
And I think it is an IK target bone. I haven’t really gotten that far into it, I’m working off an already rigged model. No matter what I do, I cannot get the head to rotate. Not, look both ways before crossing the street left and right. More like, putting your ear on your shoulder rotation.
The “Head” bone (on Bone Layer 2, which was turned off) you can see that it has a Track To constraint, with “Head Target” as the Target - so it ALWAYS point towards this bone. So to rotate the head, you simply move the “Head Target” bone to where you want the head to point. To do this; Select the “Head Target” bone, Key G and move the bone with your mouse. In the top picture above the “Head Target” bone is highlighted in yellow and is in front of the head.
Cheers, Clock.
EDIT:
This is where the bone layers are:
Also, the Armature was in “Rest Position” not “Pose Position” when I opened the file - so you cannot move anything in this mode…
EDIT2:
Just to avoid doubt - there is NO IK on the head bone.
Thank you for getting back to me with all that information. I really appreciate all the pictures and diagrams.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t answer what I am trying to do. Getting the head to point in the direction I want is the easy part. What I am trying to do is to rotate the head left to right, not side to side.
What I’m trying to do is not, keep your head vertical and look left. What i AM trying to get it to do is, look forward and tilt your head to the left, so your left ear is sitting on your left shoulder. Like you were trying to stretch your neck.
If you attempt to rotate the entire mesh, as if it were doing a cartwheel, the head will stay vertical and the body will rotate around it. Looks quite painful in my opinion.
OK - just take the Track To constraint off your “head” bone and rotate it yourself - you can do what you like then. You can rotate the bone about any of its Local Axes, or multiples thereof and then keyframe them.
Your rig doesn’t have a “root” bone - this should be between the feet on the ground and parent major bones to it - then you can move the whole thing without messing up any poses. Major bones are spine - head if not connected to spine, hands and feet IK targets, etc. i.e. unconnected bones. Can I suggest you look at the Rigify Armature - this, whilst complex is the perfect setup to animate bipeds.
