In this example, we start with the below animation and add a lag/overshoot effect to the character’s arms and legs. In the original animation, keys are set on the COG, IK arm pole vectors, and IK hand controls to create the motion below:

1. Enter the secondary motion tool by clicking on the top toolbar.

2. Select the arm and leg controls that you want to add secondary motion to:

   • In the secondary motion settings, click beside Driven Controls, which puts you in selection mode.

   • In the viewport, select the pole vector, hand, and foot controls of the left arm and leg.

   • Press Enter.

   The driven controls turn green, which indicate that each of the control’s existing animation drives its own secondary motion (see control colors):

   

   You can also set controls to be driven controls by selecting the controls in the viewport, and pressing H or clicking on the top toolbar. Note that doing this adds the controls to any existing controls already specified in the Driven Controls setting.

   Note

   You can also add secondary motion to joints - in the secondary motion settings, set Selection Type to Joints, which makes the joints available for selection in the viewport.

3. The Transform Mode and Extract Transform settings work together to determine the secondary motion’s effect on the driven controls:

   • Extract Transform - Specifies the driven controls' transform components that are affected by secondary motion. In this example, we turn on translate and rotate, so the translation and rotation of the driven controls are affected by secondary motion.

   • Transform Mode - Determines how the driven control’s existing animation affects the secondary motion:

     • If Transform Mode is set to Uniform, secondary motion is only added to the transform components that have existing motion. In our example, the arms only translate in its original animation, so the lag/overshoot effect is added to the translation of the arm controls.

     • If Transform Mode is set to Dynamic, translation changes in the original animation also adds rotational secondary motion to the control. In our example, the lag/overshoot effect is added to both the translation and rotation of the arm controls.

   In the video below, secondary motion is turned off to show the original animation on the arm and leg controls - the arm controls only have a translation (no rotation), and the leg controls have no motion:

   The videos below show the difference between uniform and dynamic transform mode. The leg controls don’t have any motion in the original animation, so no lag/overshoot effect is added to these controls. In addition, the arm’s pole vector doesn’t rotate because the pole vector’s rotation isn’t promoted in the character’s rig:

   Note

   In dynamic transform mode, a greater secondary motion effect is added to controls that are further away from the root of the joint hierarchy. Uniform transform mode, on the other hand, adds equal secondary motion to all the driven controls, regardless of their distance from the root of the hierarchy. In the above videos, we can see that the lag/overshoot effect moves the hand control more than the pole vector in dynamic transform mode compared with uniform transform mode.

4. At this point, the existing animation on the arm controls drive the added secondary motion effect. We now set the COG control to drive the secondary motion on the arms and legs. In the secondary motion settings:

   • Turn on Driver Control.

   • Click the button beside Driver Control.

   • In the viewport, select the COG control and press Enter. The driven controls turn pink, and the driver control turns blue.

   • For Extract Transform, turn on translate and .

   • Set Transform Mode to Dynamic.

   The lag/overshoot effect on the arm and leg controls are now driven by the translation of the COG control:

   Note

   If the Driver Control setting is turned on, but no driver control is specified, no secondary motion is added to the controls because nothing is driving the secondary motion effect.

5. To change the strength of the secondary motion effect for specific controls, use the secondary motion parameters. Here, we decrease the lag/overshoot effect on the leg controls:

   • Select the leg controls.

   • In the secondary motion parameters, Transform Multipliers section, reduce the value of Translate.

6. At this point, the lag/overshoot effect is only added to the character within the secondary motion tool. To keep the effect on the character even after exiting the secondary motion tool, add keys to the character’s controls:

   • Select the controls you want to add keys to. If you don’t select any controls, keys are added to all the controls.

   • In the animate state settings, go to the Bake tab. See baking settings for the available options. Click Bake Keys.

     Note

     After you bake the keys, secondary motion is automatically turned off in the secondary motion settings (the top button strip shows ). This is because the secondary motion effect has already been added to the character’s animation in the current layer. If you turn on secondary motion (), you are adding another secondary motion effect on top of the character’s current animation, essentially doubling the secondary motion effect.