How to move a Rigify Rig

Once you've got as far as skining your rig and you're weight painting you kind of think, 'Hey nearly there!' and then you try and move the rig how you want so you can do the weight painting and find it doesn't really do what you want.. or anything much... Has all this time you've spent been wasted!

no

It's just not intuitive at all. The main confusing thing is that there are two sets of controls for each limb and they are the same shape as each other and on top of each other. Great. sooo....


On layer 20 of your blend file (not bone layer 20, but normal layer 20) you will find all the meshes used for the control bones and you can change them, either to make them easier to access (because your model has fat legs), or because you want to tell them apart.

For the uninitiated there are two types of control bones in the rig: FK (forward kinematics) bones -  these are like moving the joints of a doll and each limb receives the rotation of the joint nearer the body. Then there are IK bones (inverse kinematics) where you move the extremity and all the other bones move to fit they best way they can between the extremity and the body.

For the arms and the legs there is an IK bone which is about the most useful control bone for the limb. It is the same shape and position as another control bone which is the most mystifying of the limb. If you don't know what your doing you will select either at random and the limb will either move or it won't.

In the picture (we are looking at the meshes on layer 20) you will see the mesh used for the shape of the left foot control bone WGTfoot_IK.L Hidden behind it is WGTfoot.L. We want to make the useful bone different so we can select it easily and not be confused. I stuck a triangle bit at the front of the IK bone to make it easier to select.

You need to do the same with the hands as well. The 'rig hand_IK.L' control bone is just on top of the wrist and also cunning on top of the 'rig hand.L' bone. So I'm going to change it. The mesh on layer 20 is called WGThand_IK.L.

Now my hand IK bone has a nifty handle to separate it from the other bone. If you move these IK bones about, the limbs move... sort of

If we look at the arm we can see that the non IK control can come away from the arm.

The IK control is still above the wrist but the non IK or 'FK' (forward kinematics) control has move south along with the other controls we would normally associate with moving the arm.

So here is how it works. With the FK/IK (hand_ik...) slider set to 1.00 (see picture below) the IK control bone will contol the arm. To be more exact the arm will follow the controller bone but you can not rotate the controller bone so the hand will end up in some pretty strange positions.

If you move the FK/IK slider to 0 then the arm will move back over the other set of controller bones. Now you can move the arm about in the normal way; setting each bone one by one.

By pressing the Snap IK-FK button (bottom one) the IK control bone will move into exactly the same position as the FK bones. If you press the Snap FK-IK button then the FK bones will move to the position of the IK bones. So, if you have the FK/ IK slider up to 1.00. you can press Snap FK-IK to bring the FK control bones to the position of your arm. Move the non IK control bones to a new postion, and then press Snap IK- FK to move the arm to the new position.

Oh and by the way! There are some other IK bones which are influenced by the slider in the same way.

It is interesting to note that the Rig Main Properties sliders and buttons are the same for the set of controls (that was crap explanation). IE. the FK/IK slider is the same slider whether you see it when the IK control bone is selected or the non IK bone is selected.

If you have a non IK control bone selected then there is an extra slider.. Isolate Rotation. This works if the FK/IK slider is set to 0. Basically id Isolate Rotation is set to 0 and you tilt the body the arms will tilt with it. With Isolate Rotation at 1 the arms will keep there current orientation from the shoulder even if the body is tilted.

I think thats enough for now. Its the same from the legs pretty much. Once you've mastered these animation can begin.

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How to weight paint a Rigify model