Here’s a screencast of my problem:
fiddling with f-curves, increasing and decreasing a Z-value in the curve editor moves the bone in Y. Missing something obvious I’m sure. Help? THANKS
Turn your bone axis on and watch the direction.
Will do as soon as I get to my desktop! Thanks!
I’m not rotating though, just trying to move it in global space…
Post a blend.
OK. Your Z axis is relative to the bone local axis, not global Z in the graph editor. Turn your transform to normal to see which way the widget points or turn on your bone axis. When you adjust the Z axis on the bone, your thinking Z global. Here I marked it up for you. Yes it can be confusing.
Switch to normal transforms in 3d on your bones and as you adjust Z now, it will follow the bone and the widget, not global Z. If you want to go up and down on Z global, you can adjust in the 3d window or use the bones Y axis combines with the z axis to achieve Z global.
Good luck you got a great start going.
Ah OK, I see that now. Now why do my IK bones obey global axes manipulation and not the hips?
The IK targets follow the world coordinates, because that is how they are oriented. The bones Y axis is along the length of the bone. The IK bones are rotated so their Y axis matches the world Y axis.
It is really good practice to have a Root bone, that is at 0,0,0 and rotated so that its axis’ align with the world, so that character movements follow the global axis’
OK, thank you for this. I do have a root bone but left it stationary because I don’t want my IK bones to move if the root moves, is this not best practice?
Yeah, that’s correct. I also add a bone I call Pivot that is oriented the same as the root bone, but located at the hips, then parented Root->Pivot->Hip. That gives a control that can grab the whole body and move similar to world coordinates.
Also keep in mind, world coordinates are static, bone coordinates are a gimbal. Meaning if a bone, oriented to the world, rotates on it’s Y axis, its Z axis is probably no longer pointed up. The rotation order is selected in the transforms section of the N-Panel. It’s a subject that’s kind of deep and not easily explained in a text. Search youtube for “blender gimbal lock”
You mean they are defined by quaternions, right? If so, I realize that if for no other reason than that it’s impossible to manipulate bone rotations with f curves, and have to do it in the 3d view.
Anyhoo, your point about a ‘sub root’ is well taken… luckily I’m just using this particular file as practice for a Unity game. Thanks again, very much.
Do the mods mark this thread as solved, I can’t find how to do it. Solved as far as I’m concerned
You edit the first post, in advanced mode, and there is an option near the top for prefix. Choose solved.
Glad it’s working for you.
Thanks again.