One more APEX reversefoot topic

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Hi!
First, very sorry to add one more reverse foot topic, but I swear I've searched (a lot!) before asking here...
I already saw many tutorials and threads about that, but I'm still very lost!

My main question is: How do I set up everything to be able, when I tweak the toeoffset, toecontroloffset, heeloffset, tiltoffset in the reverse foot component to have them behave fine, and mirrored? There is always one axis wrong for me.. :/


I saw that I have to add a mirror attribute to the mirrored foot, like on Electra's rig example, but after updating some outdated autorig components nodes (spine, multiik, reversefoot), this example has the same issue I'm having...

I also saw that if my joint orientations are flipped initially, I should add a mirror tag on them. On the example I saw the "non mirrored" side was the right side, and I'm building from the left side, so I'm confused about joint orientation. Should my Z axis on my transform attribute (joint orientation) points at the child joint, or in the opposite direction? And does it depends on which side, left or right? And even after orienting the Z axis, how do I orient the others axis? From what I remember it doesn't matter, I just have to "choose" the secondary axis and try to stick with it, but I'm in doubt now eheh.
And what's the difference between the mirror tag and attribute? Is there any?
Sorry a lot of question, all of them mainly to illustrate how much I'm lost!


If someone has some explanation, direction, advice, suggestion, anything that can make me less lost, I'd be very very grateful!

I'm leaving here my file, with a stashed remeshed mesh jsut to have a ref.
A big thanks to whoever have some time or wisdom to share!

Image Not Found

Attachments:
reversefoot_parameters.png (38.1 KB)
z_axis.png (427.6 KB)
reversefoot_file.hiplc (3.0 MB)

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We have updated the default of our nodes to now be the industry standard X+ direction down bone chains.

In you case you have it set to the legacy -Z down the chain.

Here is a little bit of a cleaned up setup.

Attachments:
joint_orientations.hiplc (3.2 MB)

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Hi William!
Thanks a lot for your return. Happy to know for the new standard orientations.
But I still have some questions, sorry! :/

  • Is there a place where I can know of this kind of changes? (updated orientations) In the doc I guess, but not sure where and how to search for this kind of things..!
  • I saw you changed the APEX component from "reverse foot" to "foot". Any reason? Is there a place where I can read more about all those components individually? The help from the main autorig component node doesn't help a lot in this regard.
  • Lastly and -for me- mainly, I may not understand well the logic here, but if you have a look at my screenshot, when I tweak the z component of the "tilt A Offset" parameter, circled in pink, it moves the two nulls/crosses circled in pink in the viewport... It doesn't seem (again, for me!) logic. It should moves the two green circled ones. The way it is behaving atm will only work if I have two perfectly symmetrical feet, with no differences in their inside and outside shapes... What am I understanding or doing wrong here?

Sorry for the too many questions, and thanks once more for your time!
François.

Attachments:
foot_parameters.png (807.3 KB)

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Those values are just offsets, start with the defaults and adjust them to match the scale of your character. If you are using the default character scales like electra and otto the values should already almost work.

To clarify by offsets,they are all offsets from the ball and ankle joint. If you zero them out you will see their original position plus the ground plane offset. The controls are being cast onto a ground plane from their original position before the offset is applied


All I did here was to reduce the amount that was already there by middle mouse dragging the value.
Edited by william_harley - 2026年9月30日 10:54:51
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Pardon me William, I think my english isn't helping here...
I made a simple screenshot here with exagerrated deformed feet just to better illustrate my problem/doubt, and of course, to show better what is the behaviour I'm having at the moment.

In this example, if I use the "tilt offset A or B, in z, it respectively moves the green (A) or pink (B).
So, I can never have the offsets to match the feet shape on both feet... It only works when my feet are roughly simmetrical from the ball/ankle (here red) axis...
From what I understand, those offsets should be swapped / mirrored on the other foot to make sense.
The way it is behaving at the moment doesn't allow me to have those offsets where they should be.


REALTIME EDIT!
As I'm writing and trying to explain here my problem, a maybe obvious solution blossomed here in my mind:
Isn't my problem just because of the way I'm orienting my feet?
Should I just rotate the ankle/ball axis to always be in the exact center of the feet (or the opposite, tweak my mesh for the feet to always be symetrical from that axis?)
One more screenshot to illustrate this, sorry again!


(But if so, I continue thinking it would be simpler and more intuitive to just have those offsets mirrored!)
And if I'm not making sense here, please just ignore me, I won't be able to express me better and I've already took too much of your time!

Attachments:
feet_offsets.png (523.9 KB)
foot_axis.png (531.9 KB)

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Hi here is a setup where you simply add the guides at the start of the rig.
The components usually work in the find or create mode, if it finds a guide that already exists it will use that position.

Attachments:
joint_orientations_custom.hiplc (3.3 MB)

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