I'm following the leg IK setup video with an imported FBX rig.

To preface: the imported FBX rigs don't produce a ‘chain’ of bones like the video and wouldn't work with the shelf tools for Bones Add; seemingly because of not being a correct ‘chain’?? I went back and re parented the bone structure via I/O of the nodes in the network pane; now the bones reacted as in the video. They changed their outlines to include the extra edges which produce the ‘pinched’ look at the affecter end, a KINchop was produced, as well as the two other goals with the heel/toe setups.

I finished the setups to discover all the NULLs worked as in the video with the I/O linked; but my bones did no moving at all, as in the video.

Is there something I am possiblly doing incorrectly, in setting this up for IK? I'll gladly view more videos, or read documentation; just link away!! Do I need to use the NULLs that produce the chain, the bones are linked via the ‘lookat’ function. I entered the KIN, as in the video, and directed the twist effecters….?? What am I doing wrong?

Any direction is appreciated.

Thank you.

I'm following the leg IK setup video with an imported FBX rig.

Could you post a link to the video you're referring to?

Do I need to use the NULLs that produce the chain, the bones are linked via the ‘lookat’ function

As you've noticed, skeletons imported from FBX are different, and here's why: while the FBX format supports both bone-based and joint-based systems, the vast majority of FBX files stores skeletons as joints.

In general, joint-based systems cannot be directly represented using bone-based systems, which is why the FBX importer replaces joints with null nodes. Any bones created by it are for visualization purposes only, and this is why each bone is looking at the child of the null node it is attached to, so running IK on these bones is not going to work.

However, you can't use nulls with IK either, since as far as I know, Houdini's IK solver will only work with bone nodes. In general, it is better to use standard bone-based skeletons for IK.

I did reparent my rig inside the network editor and it resmembled the ones I've seen presented in other videos. I check keep position when parenting and just rework my network pane graphically, I'm hoping this is enough to produce a ‘chain’. I can start the ‘chain’ with one of the joint/nulls holding weight. I certainly don't want to start using those to build solvers with!

The video in question is from the forums perhaps? I know it's an .AVI…seems to be in German OS from menus, and no voice; sorry not a good description. It goes over creating a leg and setting the IK for it. I've just finished the BUZZ3d rigging series, somewhat similar…

I've got the controls working somewhat now; I extracted all the contents of the FBX imported subnetwork to the /OBJ level and now I get some control, but always the ‘twist’ function, no rotation in the other vectors.

Again, these rig orientations are not ‘standard’ for creating the bones in HD; I've got a lot of rigs from outside HD, I'd like to get them setup as best as I can, as any I can use any existing animations from outside, since the ROP I'm using will allow this. Any existing transforms and naming need to be the same; however, naming convention of white space is fixed by the ROP, the transforms need to be as they came in. This is my next learning curve for importing and ‘exporting’ via this ROP.

I'm still working this out…I'm not certain if I can pass the rig or mesh along as it's part of a licensed SDK….

So, I guess a better question is: can you put IK to Imported rigs from FBX?

So, I guess a better question is: can you put IK to Imported rigs from FBX?

Unfortunaetly no, not in at the moment. Doing this would probably require modifying our IK solver to work not just on bones, but on any generic nodes, and this is not a trivial task.

DrFrankenRex
Again, these rig orientations are not ‘standard’ for creating the bones in HD; I've got a lot of rigs from outside HD, I'd like to get them setup as best as I can, as any I can use any existing animations from outside, since the ROP I'm using will allow this. Any existing transforms and naming need to be the same

If there's no animation on the joints that you want from the imported file, then it might be possible to import the joints as bones with Houdini's IK applied. ie. If there's only animation on the IK goals. I'm not sure that Torque's IK system and Houdini's IK system will match though so the resulting joint/bone animation will might differ slightly.

What is the source of your animation? Another route you might consider is to import your characters as .bvh or .asf/.amc files if you have them. Houdini's mocap importers have options to import them as pure IK at the possibly of having them differ slightly from the original animation.