It finally hit me.

I am trying very hard to make good animations but the problem is the IKs. As expected, the hands and feet suddenly change its form (twist/side/bend?) once I turn off IK. It doesn't matter sometimes but there are moments when you will need to use IK to pin the limbs in place as you move the rest of the body.

What I do is I animate with IK off then when in a pose that will need to use IK:

1.) I copy and save the last pose in the pose folder

2.) Save scene and open a new scene.

3.) load the same character then apply the pose.

4.) Edit>Duplicate 'Figure 1'

5.) With Figure 2 selected open material room

6.) Change Figure 2 diffuse color to blue then find: black arrow> select all>apply to all

7.) Once Figure 2 is all blue, Figure>Lock Figure

8.) Open heirarchy editor, hide all limbs of Figure 2 except left and right hands, feet and toes. (These will be your guide)

9.) Select Figure 1, turn on IKs and pose as you want.

10.) Turn off IK.  Hands and Feet suddenly jerk after this.  Use the blue guides to correct it.

11.) Once satisfied save pose and open original animation and apply new pose to desired keyframe.

12.) Enjoy.

What can you say guys? Do you think I finally solve the poser animation mystery or there is a better way out there?

:D

I haven't tried this, but I cannot think of any reason why it wouldn't work. (I tried hard to stick as many negatives as possible into that sentence! LOLOLOL)

Before turning OFF IK-- Save the hand pose to a folder in your "HANDS" folder in the library. Turn off IK, then if distortion occurs, apply the library hand pose.

If it works, it should streamline your work-flow a bit! :lol:

I'm gonna try this.  This problem  also plagues  me  as I am sure it does  most people.
will let you know

Thanks

"4) Edit>Duplicate 'Figure 1' "

the Figure 1...is that command going to refer  back to the saved pose of step 1,  or the saved scene of step 2 ??

Quote - "4) Edit>Duplicate 'Figure 1' "

the Figure 1...is that command going to refer  back to the saved pose of step 1,  or the saved scene of step 2 ??

You will Duplicate Figure 1 after you apply the pose you saved from the first scene. You don't really have to save the second scene because you will need only the pose that you create in it and apply that back to the first scene.

I tried it and it gave the results very well. The good thing with IK is you can just simply move the hip and the rest goes along with it, saving time and makes everything look realistic. The guides of figure 2 helps you to correct the placement of hands and feet.

Quote - I haven't tried this, but I cannot think of any reason why it wouldn't work. (I tried hard to stick as many negatives as possible into that sentence! LOLOLOL)

Before turning OFF IK-- Save the hand pose to a folder in your "HANDS" folder in the library. Turn off IK, then if distortion occurs, apply the library hand pose.

If it works, it should streamline your work-flow a bit!

IMO my system works better because there are times when you will need a little adjustment different from the original that involves dragging the limbs using the move tool. The Hand/Feet Guides are the key to this system.

Oh I see. Essentially, this is a method to add a "ghost" figure to the scene, which provides guides so you can match your "real figures" hands and feet to it after you have moved your "real figure", then of course you can hide the  "ghost" for rendering time.
I will tell you what this is way better than: clicking back to previous key frame a zillion times and trying to memorize with your eye where the feet or hand has to be to appear in the same position for the nex key frame!

owl, if possible, post a link to a video demonstrating your new technique.

Ok let"s try that.

http://rapidshare.com/files/133697866/IKAnimation.wmv.html

^^^Video Tutorial 47.6 MB

Why not just keep IK on. What is the problem with IK? Works fine for me.

o.k., thx fr the tutorial, owl.  we'll await their feedback to see how they like it.
my only critique would be that the guy's hand mightn't sink into the bed if
IK were always on.  I know they tell ya to turn off IK before doing animations,
but sometimes it's necessary.  one other word of caution: some may advise
ya on this topic, even though there's no evidence they've ever done animations.

I kinda partly wanted the hand to sink because the bed suppose to be softer, not firm like a coffin lol. Its easy to correct the sunk hand later on. The problem with animating with IK on in my opinion is I will rely to dragging the hands to pose them and I wont be able to effectively spin the dials on the other higher parts of the body like the shoulder while in IK off, you have more freedom and could do the same hand-feet dragging. Animating with IK on all the time could be nightmare if animating a very complex scene.

IK cannot really guarantee that the they will remain in place. It would be nice if poser will have a feature like "pin hands and feet"  that will render them frozen in place and cannot be moved whatsoever and with that I think IK would become obsolete and my system would be dragged along with it (oh noooo!).

Oh and if anyone will ask what screen capture software I used in making that tutorial, it is called camstudio. It's free and very reliable for use in making tutorials and would definitely recommend it so that we could at least fill up the video section in rendo.

I tried to upload my movie but it seems wmv format is not recognized or my video is too long (11 mins).

o.k., owl, if the hand is sposeta sink into the bed, then that's cool.
perhaps they'll include constraint functions for the hands and feet in poser 8.

They should. IK is almost useless.

BTW I like the word    "pesky".

"pesky" is a good word.

Actually that's the first time I used that word. LOL XD