Huh? Yes, I'm talking about Inverse Kinematics in P6. Still drives me nuts after all these years. I had really been hoping for a switch for turning IK on/off without having to go in for every new figure loaded and switch off EACH LEG separately. So tiresome. Aaaarghhhh... And that blasted figure circle! I never, never want to see it again. But it's always there. :] Fish

Is it possible to switch OFF the figure circle and keep it OFF with the preferences? Never tried it.

Me also. Why the ^&*(( did that stupid habit arise in the first place, of automatically making legs switch to IK-on on loading to stage?????????????

I think it is possible to get rid of the circle. You have to edit the preferences file in a text editor or some such thing.

And you can switch off IK save the char and you will never have to do it again. That's what I do. Marque

Or buy figures that have it switched off already... ;-)

Attached Link: http://www.ockhamsbungalow.com/Python/

Or you can buy an (overpriced) utilty I seen, or you can read one of the thread here on how-to, but I'd bet FishNose alread knows how-to. ;-)

You'd think it a simple task to write an application that just goes through the Runtime/libraries/character folder of choice, reads in each CR2/CRZ, and writes out a version with IK disabled. I'm way, way, way too busy or I'd do it myself, in Java (instant Win/Mac/Unix/Linux/Beos/AmigaOS/PS2 support! ;) ... [hint, hint, wink, wink]

Do not disable IK permanently. Sometimes IK is useful.

Simply saving the figure with IK off does not work if the IK goal is named LeftLeg or RightLeg. Poser (GKW) always turns those IK channels on. That's OK we can keep the IK channels and just give them different names. It's a really simple edit with the HE editor. Delete the IK chains for the feet, now recreate them an call them LeftFoot and RightFoot. Save your IK modified figure to the library. Now when it is loaded the IK will be left in the state you saved it in. You don't even need any fancy scripts. If you know your way round a CR2 it's a really easy 2 line edit. Simply adding a space between "Left" and "Leg" will fix it in the IK channel. Be sure to change the inkyChain line, not the name line. The name is what is displayed in the menu. The inkyChain is the "internal" name. Warning: Don't edit a cr2 to turn the IK off, that is change the "on" line to "off". There's way more to it than that, let Poser turn it off enless you are an expert cr2 hack and know all the things that need to change. (P.S. Text Pad 4 has folder wide search and replace. Replace "inkyChain[5 spaces]LeftLeg" with inkyChain[5 spaces]LeftFoot") Nerd3D

That may be the case, but I'll bet that there are more than a few CR2s out there that don't have exactly [5 spaces] in between (since not everyone creates their CR2s directly in Poser). I've parsed enough Poser files to have seen things you couldn't believe get into Poser or bend the rules to near breaking point. Still, I'll agree with you on the change of chainname over disabling IK. Either method is so easily implemented, why has no one done it (not an interactive Python script)? Anthony: Yes, IK can be useful. But wouldn't it be easier to start with it disabled and only enable when absolutely needed? Otherwise, every time you try to pose the legs, you first start with the "what the f...?!" mode as they don't do as expected - because IK is always enabled by default.

Text Pad also allows search and replace using regular expressions "inkyChain *LeftLeg" for example.

Nerd3D <-- Taking donations to get R'osity a spell check for the forum.

Message edited on: 04/07/2005 02:12

I have Poser 4.0.3 without PPP. If I set a character's legs to IK-off and save him, when I reload him to stage, Poser automatically switches his legs to IK-on IF he is lone and not part of a parented cluster of 2 or more characters (which happens with my frogmen and flamethrowermen etc where he has equipment which has movable parts and thus is a character).

But surely an inkyParent is what happens when a child has a tantrum while he is doing his school homework at home. :-)

Anthony is correct. Tguyus discovered that if you save an IK off figure wearing conforming clothing IK will remain off when the figure is reloaded.

I tend to save figures with conforming hair. Incidentally, I learnt this from the readme in lesbentley's "MinFig" download - which supplies an alternative minimal cr2 that may be used as a conformed figure.

Message edited on: 04/07/2005 05:10

You can use the utility poses from morphworld 3.0, turn ik on/turn ik off and just rename them to poseDot_(whatever#) like 8 on 9 off then you can switch them on and off at the touch of a button. oops forgot you have to move them to the runtime/dot/pose folder once renamed :)

Message edited on: 04/07/2005 05:54

Great tip for utility poses - thanks.

... just been exploring the possibilities here, and the tip is proving to be very useful indeed. Early days, but so far utility poses seem to work without problem when you rename them to cm2 and use them as 'camera poses' (where I usually have more dots available). I've just tried including a couple of my most frequently used INJ and MAT poses into the Pose Room camera dots folder (as cm2 files), and they work fine. You've started me off now - I love simple shortcuts like this. I'm thinking (for example), with the camera and pose dots being unique to each room.... I'll add various scaling utility poses to the cloth room dots. The possibilities are endless. Thanks again!

I love IK, but agree with many others that it should not be turned on by default. Thanks to nerd, lesbentley, and others, there's now a pretty good set of methods to work around this "default on" problem: minfig, IK on/off PZ2s to avoid laborious one-limb-at-a-time switching, etc. And what a great idea to install those IK PZ2s as pose dots! (Thanks Wraith! I'm going to go set that up right now!)

One new hassle I've encountered recently with IK involves dynamic clothing. Coming straight from P4PP, dynamic clothing was new to me this week, and I was frustrated to find that morphed characters have to be zeroed, at least in the first few frames, so the dynamic clothing would fit. svdl's methods for ramping up morphs while leading up to an animated pose sequence works great... but a zeroed figure has straight legs. So with IK on to allow a figure to keep her feet planted while doing, say, a dance sequence, the legs get all wacky once the animated sequence begins. So here's my initial solution:

After zeroing the figure in frame 1, I bend her shins, feet and toes then move the ytrans and ztrans of her hip in frame 1 so her feet are where I want them throughout the dance sequence. For dynamic clothing which stays above the shins (or is longer but billowing so the dynamic cloth stays outside the lower limbs in frame 1), this retains the rest of the figure as zeroed so the clothing fits. The morphs are ramped up by frame 6, and the dance animation starts in frame 21. With an initial bend in the knees, the dance animation now works from frame 21 onward without the back-bending legs, and the clothing then responds to the figure morphs and drapes properly.

Like I said, I'm new to dynamic clothing so this approach, or a better one, may have been discovered already by others... but coming straight from P4PP I missed all the collective learning about dynamic cloth because I always, alas, ignored P5 threads.

So... keep IK alive (but do give people who hate it an easy-to-use kill switch)!

I keep a "zero" pose dot too. A V3,V2,M2,M3,Posette, and all my custom stuff combined zero pose that zeros all the FBM's and morphs for those figures. Obviously this is hand crafted. It's very crude though. Just poses for all these figures grafted together. Nerd3D

Message edited on: 04/07/2005 12:23

A zero pose dot is another great idea! Thanks, Nerd3D!