Hi, I need help with my model. I’m making a humanoid model, i’m “rigging” it as people call it. My problem is with the foot and toes. I assigned the vertices in weight paint mode corresponding to the foot and toes, there’s a middle verticy that has both bones assigned to it with 50% weight each, but when I want press G to move the toes up (to animate a kick move) the toes don’t move up, but spin sideways, help me, thanks.
You’ve got to supply a blend file so we can look at what your rig’s got going on.
You can upload here… http://www.pasteall.org/blend No user or login required. Just post back here with the link to the page it gives you.
Hey reptiliantroll, the thread list shows that you replied but I don’t see the post. I assume you’re waiting for moderator approval because you’re a new user. Sometimes it can take a while. 
Think about making some posts to the WIP or finished projects forums to buff your post count. You’re only moderated until you’ve got ten posts.
Ok i’ve got a post count od 10 now 
Finally :rolleyes:, here’s my file: http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=46764
Cool. Simple fix…
Rotation, unless you choose an axis, is relative to the view. In the N-Panel, under Transform, click the lock icon next to Y and Z rotation. That way the toe will always rotate on only the X axis.
Have fun man!
Wow thank you so much for helping me :o
I have a few questions: Does making an image a “front” axis count as “choosing an axis”? can you please go into deep detail, thank you. 
And the toes are still weird, i have to rotate them 360 degrees to be able to rotate them fully up, otherwise they won’t go up much.
When I go into side view (by pressing 3 on the NUMPAD) the toes move up fine, but when I try to do it in front view, they don’t move up as much, only a quarter of the way of what I would like them to move.
Hmm… I’m not quite seeing what you are about the 360 rotation of the toe. But I did clean up some simple things.
I turned on x-axis symmetry in the T-Panel, options, for the rigs edit mode. That way changes you make to one side are properly mirrored to the other side.
I added a root bone, so the rig has got a single bone parent. That way you can just move the root bone to move the whole rig.
I straightened out the knee pole bones. If they are directly on the Z axis of the first bone in the IK chain, then the pole rotation can be set to either 90 or -90, and life is good.
I also turned on the Y and Z rotation constraints in the shin bone properties panel. That way the knees will only bend on their X axis, just like in real life.
As for choosing an axis to rotate on… If you type R then X it will constrain the rotation to the global X axis. R XX will constrain to whatever transform orientation you have set in the 3D view, header bar.
http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=46765
EDIT: I also moved the armature and mesh origins to the root bone. that way, when you’re done relying on your viewport images, you can just clear the armature’s location to move the model up so it’s standing at the center of the grid, like it should be.
In the side view your rotation is straight sideview rotation(x axis). In other views the rotation is relative to the view, and blender just throws away the Y and Z axis’ that are locked. So the closer you get to a front or top view the less the X axis will be affected when you rotate.
Ok it’s taking me alot of time to understand everything you just said 
I have a lot of questions.
'Hmm… I’m not quite seeing what you are about the 360 rotation of the toe. But I did clean up some simple things."
The toes mysteriously only go the opposite way: down, why? by 360, i meant that I had to move the toes down 360 degrees and I would be able to animate moving the toe up, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to move the toes up, not very convenient when you want to do an animation.
“I turned on x-axis symmetry in the T-Panel, options, for the rigs edit mode. That way changes you make to one side are properly mirrored to the other side.”
What is x-axis symmetry? what does that have to do with mirroring?
“I added a root bone, so the rig has got a single bone parent. That way you can just move the root bone to move the whole rig.”
Thank you I appreciate it, it’s useful when animating.
“I straightened out the knee pole bones. If they are directly on the Z axis of the first bone in the IK chain, then the pole rotation can be set to either 90 or -90, and life is good.”
You mean the “Pole Targets”? the first bone in the IK chain being the “Upper Leg”? pole rotation of what? where can I find that?
“I also turned on the Y and Z rotation constraints in the shin bone properties panel. That way the knees will only bend on their X axis, just like in real life.”
The x axis? does that mean they’re going to bend only sideways? lol, my x axis is on the side of my player, not the front. Is it on the front of yours?
“As for choosing an axis to rotate on… If you type R then X it will constrain the rotation to the global X axis. R XX will constrain to whatever transform orientation you have set in the 3D view, header bar.”
Didn’t really understand much of the last part, but thank you for all this information.
http://pasteall.org/blend/index.php?id=46765
“EDIT: I also moved the armature and mesh origins to the root bone. that way, when you’re done relying on your viewport images, you can just clear the armature’s location to move the model up so it’s standing at the center of the grid, like it should be. :)”
Basically, when I’m done animating, I can easily move my model back in place? nice, thank you. Mesh origins are the vertices assigned to the bones?
And sorry about all the questions, I’m very new to blender and only know the basics.
EDIT: I checked your file, it’s pretty neat. Why is it that the closer I am to the toes, the easier they are to move up, after all this I still have the same problem. 
And why do the pole targets in your file move with the knee?
And so what is the problem with not being able to move the toes up? :o
Wait a minute, the toes in your blender file move down instead of up, when i’m trying to move them up… :spin: lol
I’m not quite sure what the problem you’re having with rotating toes is. Make sure you’re rotating them, and not using move to force a rotation. Other than that, I don’t know what the problem is.
What is x-axis symmetry? what does that have to do with mirroring?
The X axis runs side to side, with zero in the middle. With x axis symmetry on, when editing the armature(not animating) if you move the left shin to 1 on the x axis, blender will automatically move the right shin to -1. It keeps both sides of the rig symmetrical.
You mean the “Pole Targets”? the first bone in the IK chain being the “Upper Leg”? pole rotation of what? where can I find that?
The pole rotation is in the IK constraint properties. By getting the pole bone aligned properly with the first bone in the IK chain(yes, the upper leg/thigh), you can enter an absolute, known value for the rotation, and don’t have to just tweak it, till it looks right.
The x axis? does that mean they’re going to bend only sideways? lol, my x axis is on the side of my player, not the front. Is it on the front of yours?
Picture a hinge that runs side to side, on the x axis. By locking rotation to that hinge the shin can only bend forward and back.
As for choosing an axis to rotate on… If you type R then X it will constrain the rotation to the global X axis. R XX will constrain to whatever transform orientation you have set in the 3D view, header bar."
Didn’t really understand much of the last part, but thank you for all this information.
The header bar is the menu and button bar that runs along the bottom(or top) of each window area. In the 3D view header bar is a pop up list for the current transform orientation. Your’s is probably set to Global. Within that list are other options for which direction things move and rotate. They can be a little confusing, but the simplest to understand is Local. If you add a cube, and rotate it, you’re not just rotating the cube geometry, you’re rotating the cube’s local space. The cube’s local X no longer points along the global x axis. This might sound weird, but it is very handy, because you can still edit the in its local space, and moves and rotations will be aligned with the cube, even though the cube isn’t aligned to the world.
When using G(move) or R(rotate) on the keyboard, you can constrain to an axis by typing the letter corresponding to it. RX will rotate on the global X axis. RXX will rotate on the x axis of the transform orientation that is chosen in the header bar.
When animating Local is a good transform orientation to use. Try changing the header bar list to Local, select your toe, and type RXX on the keyboard. See if that doesn’t help sort out the problem with the toe rotation.
Basically, when I’m done animating, I can easily move my model back in place?
nice, thank you. Mesh origins are the vertices assigned to the bones?
No! When you are done modelling, move the armature and mesh back to 0,0,0 and scale it to the proper height, AND apply the scale. Then animate. In blender 1 unit basically corresponds to 1 meter. As it is now the model is huge. When you animate, location keyframes are added using the current size of the armature. If you try to scale the rig after animating it will bite you.
And sorry about all the questions, I’m very new to blender and only know the basics.
It’s no problem at all. I’m glad to help.
Why is it that the closer I am to the toes, the easier they are to move up.
If you are using move, rather than rotate, movement will be relative to the screen space, and it often doesn’t act intuitively, especially when first getting used to it.
And why do the pole targets in your file move with the knee?
Because I parented those bones to the leg IK targets. When using a root bone, the root bone is the only bone that doesn’t have a parent bone. Everything is parented to something that is in a parent/child chain, that leads to the root bone. That is why moving the root bone moves the whole rig. As your rig gets more complex there are more convenient ways to parent the knee poles, but at this stage parenting them to the IK targets is a decent fix that keeps them close to a proper position when animating the legs.
Which bones are the leg IK targets? sorry, I’m confused.
So, after all, there’s no normal way to move the toes up when in front view, I need to lock rotations or just move it up from side view?
You mean use R instead of G? I tried that, didn’t solve the problem.
I’m still not sure what the problem is with the toe rotation. When I edited and poked around at your model, the toes didn’t do anything that I thought was odd. It might just be because I’m used to how blender works. Generally speaking I always use R if I want to rotate, and G to move. Because the toe bones are connected to the foot bones they can’t move. When you try to move them, blender sees that they can’t move and rotates them instead. Since not all bones are connected, in my mind, it’s just good practice to use R if you want to rotate, and G if you want to move.
Ok thank you, where can I find this to use it when I need it?
It’s in “Options” tab of the “Tools Panel”(left side, press T). It only shows up there when you’re in edit mode. Mesh objects also have the same option there when you’re in edit mode on a mesh.
Ok. An absolute known valute for the rotation of what, the pole target bone?
Yes, kind of. It isn’t the rotation of the pole target bone, but instead the angle toward the pole target bone. By getting the pole bone lined up correctly in edit mode then setting the “pole angle” for the IK constraint is very simple.
Transform orientation being “Global”, “Local” etc?
Yeah. Basically transform means moves, rotations, etc. And orientation is what direction it transforms. The ones in the list are just the built in ones, and you can define custom orientations to make modeling more convenient, but that’s a subject for a different day.
Well, what I simply meant is that a root bone is useful to move the whole character around, if you don’t have one, moving the model is obviously tedious.
I understand. The point I was trying to make is, if this is a model that you intend to have in a scene with other objects, get the scale and location set, before building animations.
Hmm, I don’t get what you mean; I used both R and G on the front and sides, they do the exact same thing, unless I’m missing something.
They only do the same thing because blender can’t move the toe bone, so it rotates instead. I don’t know the internals of how it makes a rotation out of a move command, but I think it’s best to just use R to rotate, if you want to rotate.
Which bones are the leg IK targets? sorry, I’m confused.
They’re the bones that point backwards from the heels.
So, after all, there’s no normal way to move the toes up when in front view, I need to lock rotations or just move it up from side view?
You can set your transform orientation to Normal or Local, and type RXX to rotate the toes up/down, in any view.
I finally solved the problem, all I needed to do was press R then X and the toe would rotate perfectly up, if I had the other 2 axis locked. 
rolleyes::spin: I could’ve tried that a while ago, it was stuff I allready knew -_-
Well at least i’ve learned useful stuff from you, thank you alot for the help.
I also turned on the Y and Z rotation constraints in the shin bone properties panel. That way the knees will only bend on their X axis, just like in real life.
Nice, where in the properties panel can I find that when I also need to use it?
By the way, this guy seems able to rotate the toes up and down, and I don’t remember him locking any axis or any of that, what did he do? Unless again, that I’m missing something. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iaB2GpzIxQ&list=PLFt_AvWsXl0djuNM22htmz3BUtHHtOh7v&index4 and also this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTo4adwvulE&index=5&list=PLFt_AvWsXl0djuNM22htmz3BUtHHtOh7v
The IK rotation locks are in the Inverse Kinematics panel of the bone properties, when in pose mode. You can also set individual bone rotation limits, stiffness and how much bones will stretch, in order to fine tune how the IK chain moves.
I watched those two videos. He only rotates the toes while in side view. And as you’ve said, and I agreed, side view rotation works good for bones that are aligned to the side view.