MB Tutorial Part 52: Introduction to Reverse Foot Rig Video Lecture | A Complete Course: Motion Builder - Professional Skills

okay this video is going to serve as an
introduction to the next four videos to
come which are basically going to be a
mini series of videos covering how to
create a traditional reverse foot setup
now the foot rig that comes with the
standard rig have with MotionBuilder
it's a great rig it is but for a lot of
people coming from other applications
that have never used motion builder
before seem to miss the functionality
provided by a reverse foot right they
kind of long for the the good
old-fashioned reverse foot control
that's right so what we're gonna do it's
over the course of the next four videos
show you how you can extend the default
rig that comes with MotionBuilder so
that you have this reverse foot control
so let's go ahead Jack and start out by
bringing mia into the scene okay let's
take a look at the foot control that we
have by default alright here we go and
here she is and let's just kind of fly
in here real quick and have a look at
her foot currently we can take the ankle
effector and we can move it of course we
can rotate it in any given direction we
like if we rotate it down toward the
floor we're gonna start to drag it on
the floor a bit and I'll pull it down
just to exaggerate this yeah good old
floor contacts so we got the floor
contact going on very nice natural
motion but to the to the beginner who's
just getting started in MotionBuilder
this can be a little bit confusing it
can make it really difficult to to keep
the foot from sliding as you're making a
walk cycle from hand and you're relying
on those foot context plus you may not
always be using foot contact exactly you
might want to switch those off and again
a lot of the more experienced users
coming from other applications simply
want that reverse foot setup that's
right so let me go ahead and show you
where we're headed well it's before we
go there I don't mind so right now if
you grab let's say you go and put the
foot back on the ground I do several
undos will get it right back where it
was and you grab the ball mm-hmm of
course you can rotate that effector and
which is rotating the toes get the toe
now the heel if you want it to rotate at
the heel now you're in need of getting
an auxilary pivoted we'd have to create
an auxilary pivot to rotate from your
location of the heel you're somewhat
extending onto their rig at that point
now let's say you want to rotate around
the toe well we could do that we could
use the rotate around functionality to
select the toe joint
basically had the effector selected
first and then added that's right then I
added the toe joint then the switch to
rotate around and now we can rotate from
the location of the toe so we could do
that but now you've got several
different steps that you've got to keep
in mind right and so when you're
animating you don't want to do that you
want nice fast response you want
something you can readily grab and start
just start animating that's right so
let's go ahead and take a look at the
final result of the reverse foot that
we're gonna create okay so I'll grab my
final file and we don't need to save
that make sure you don't do any rotating
around and you can see already we've got
a bunch a handle set up it's nice and
clean everything's color-coded so you
can distinguish the left from the right
easily we've also got text placed inside
each of the handles so that you can tell
exactly what part you're gonna be
rotating so we have the main left foot
control and notice that floor contacts
are off so I can actually over extend
the leg and pull the foot down through
the the suppose it floor can lift the
foot up into the air I can rotate it
about any axis I want no problem kind of
wag the foot around and rotate around
why just don't look down the axis when
you do that then we also have these
other locations from which we can rotate
the foot in a more reverse foot style
manner so if I select the ball and we
rotate up onto the toe or up out of the
ball of the foot like so I then add to
that with the toe rotation we start
combining these different rotations very
nice and then we can rotate this of
course along any axis we like so we can
squash out a cigarette or I don't know
roll the egg color around then if we
flatten back out of course we have the
ability to rotate back from the heel
about any axis we want as well now
notice that when I rotate up from the
ball or up from the toe that I am
leaving the heel control behind just the
nature of the hierarchy for any of you
guys out there that have ever worked
with a reverse foot before with in any
other application you're going to
already be aware you will have seen this
before
that's are for those of you that are
beginners don't worry just takes a
little bit of time to get used to it
that's right
just remember that you'll be using your
foot control to handle the translation
of the foot in general and that's the
the ball the toe and the heel are going
to be used
for rotation that's right and once you
have that in place and really if you
just need a pattern to keep in your head
I've expended the size of the left foot
control the actual handle here so the
circular handle the ones that are still
perfectly circular these are going to be
for translation or rotation the little
oval shaped ones are gonna be for
rotation that's right so just a visual
cue and when also using this rig it's a
really good thing to keep in mind that
if anything starts to screw up make sure
that you're not in a local mode because
we've got all these different pieces
involved and they could be rotated or
just a quick thing if we take our left
foot control and we switch our switch
over to local mode for rotation we can
end up with some some craziness so just
yeah if it happens if it happens it
depends on several things that's right
so um so just be forewarned that you may
need to switch back over to a global
mode so exact let's go ahead and take a
look at what they're gonna they switch
cab when you get done with the final
video in this little mini series but now
let's take a look at where we're going
with the first lesson the first lesson
this next video that you guys are going
to watch will produce the following so
we won't save that and this is just
going to be the simple beginnings the
humble beginnings if you will of our
reverse foot system yeah all you're
really going to be doing is just
creating an inverse chain of helpers all
these nulls in here and you can see that
the hierarchy is already in place
so everything's parented together as I
select options I can see it sure sure
let's go switch over to Mia and I'll
hide the skeleton in fact if I wanted to
be in skew me fun to be really
industrious we go under display models
visibility and just switch off models
there you go all I have are just nulls
and as I rotate from the ball no of
course I'm bringing the ankle with me as
I rotate the toe no I'm bringing both
the ball and the ankle for those of you
who have built reverse foot systems in
the past you'll already be familiar with
where we're going with this in a lot of
other programs you use a joint chain to
do this in this case we're just using a
hierarchy of nulls and it's going to
work just fine so we're gonna be
creating this this chain we're going to
be doing some grouping and some renaming
that's right
just another to mention the grouping we
have organized this into groups so that
I have the inverse helpers when I get
done with these I can go ahead and hide
them get them completely out of my scene
very nice
so let's go ahead and show the result of
the second video that's up
coming we're going to be creating some I
cake constraints for the toes mm-hmm
little grouping a little renaming and
just to demonstrate this if you look
under constraints we have the left toe
constraint that once it goes active
you'll notice that when you activate
this inside the viewport you'll get you
know a question you'll say are you sure
you want your objects to rotate to
accommodate this and now when we adjust
our effectors our toes coming right
along for the process right and we're
gonna have this on both sides also we've
added a little ika hint which is kind of
like a pole vector for those who have
been rigging in the past it's just the
way to designate the plane of rotation
of the I K and we'll be adding this into
the system and really this is where this
video is gonna end we our nulls are
still free-floating just out here all
we've really done is just add in this I
K yep we've also taken us in one more
case we're also going to take the ika
helpers and we're gonna put those into a
separate group too so that we can
readily hide those when they begin to
Adam that's right okay now onto the
result of the third video coming up in
the series here's where we start to
connect everything up and start to turn
this into a functional foot rig we get
to spend a considerable amount of time
in the schematic view that's right we're
going to use the schematic view quite a
bit to make sure that our parenting is
working really well so that now as we
select the the ika helpers are the
inverse helpers our nulls we start to
get real inverse foot response so as I
rotate from the ball we get this as I
rotate from the toe of course we get
this and as I rotate back from the heel
we get this but the problem we run into
is that it's very difficult to select
these so what we're going to be doing in
the fourth video is cleaning all of this
up and smoothing out our workflow
through the implementation of handles
which is what you guys just saw a second
ago also adding handles some of things
we're going to be doing in the handle
video are going to make it possible for
you to grab set for example the foot
handle as well as say the hips and move
them at the same time to help speed up
animation when you're creating walk
cycles right and really that's going to
be it so it's going to be an interesting
journey over the next few videos as we
extend onto the default rig that comes
with motion builder to give you
incredible traditional reverse foot
control to be really cool so let's get
started