Create floor contacts for your character’s hands and feet
 
 
 

You can create floor contacts for your character’s hands and feet to make them collide with—rather than pass through—the floor surfaces you defined in your scene. Floor contacts allow your character’s hands and feet to react to the floor by stopping and bending the wrist, ankles, toes and fingers. By default, the scene grid is the floor surface, but you can also use floor contact planes to define new floor heights for your character’s hands or feet.

NoteWhen using hand or foot floor contacts, your characters must have FingerBase and ToeBase joints in their hands and feet for them to bend at the bases of their fingers and toes when they come in contact with the floor. See Auxiliary joints, Left and right hands, and Left and right feet.

To create and adjust your floor contacts

  1. In the scene view, select the HipsEff effector.

  2. Do one of the following:
    • In the Channel Box, select hikFloorContactMarker.

    All the floor contact attributes for your FBIK system appear. You can use these attributes to adjust all your character’s floor contact settings.

    Turn on the appropriate floor contacts by typing on or 1 in the Hands or Feet Contact fields and then press .

    • In the Attribute Editor, select the hikFloorContactMarker tab.

    In the Feet to Floor Contact Attributes or the Hand to Floor Contact Attributes sections, turn on the Hands or Feet Contact attributes.

    For example, if you are creating floor contacts for your character’s feet, then you would turn on the Feet Contact attribute.

    A set of hand or foot floor contact markers appear for the hands or feet of your character. By default, each floor contact marker set contains 12 markers (six markers for each hand or foot) for bipeds and 8 markers for quadrupeds (four markers for each paw or hoof).

    NoteIf your character was properly positioned when you created the FBIK effectors, then the floor contact markers will be correctly oriented in your scene. See Prepare your character for full body IK.
  3. Adjust the size of your individual floor contact markers with the Marker Size attribute.
  4. Adjust the positions of your floor contact markers to best fit your character’s hands or feet with the hand and foot floor contact attributes. See hikFloorContactMarker.
    • Adjust the Hand or Foot Height attribute so that all the markers are at the bottom of the hands or feet.
    • Adjust the Hand or Foot Back attributes so that the back markers are at the base of the hands or behind the heels of the feet.
    • Adjust the Hand or Foot Middle attributes so that the middle markers are positioned at the base of the fingers or toes.
    • Adjust the Hand or Foot Front attributes so that the markers are at the ends of the hands or feet.
    • Adjust the Hand or Foot In Side attributes so that the markers are at the inner sides of the hands or feet.
    • Adjust the Hand or Foot Out Side attributes so that the markers are at the outer sides of the hands or feet.

      Properly positioned floor contact markers Attributes that control marker placement

      1

      Hand/Foot Height

      2

      Hand/Foot Back

      3

      Hand/Foot Middle

      4

      Hand/Foot Front

      5

      Hand/Foot In Side

      6

      Hand/Foot Out Side

      Tip
      • You can customize the orientation and number of floor contact markers for your character with the Hands and Feet Contact Type attributes.
      • You can control the visibility of your hand and foot floor contact markers in your scene view with the Draw Hand Contact or Draw Feet Contact attributes.
      • You can also turn on floor contact markers for your character’s fingers and toes. If you decide to use finger and toe floor contacts, do not also use hand and foot floor contacts.
      See hikFloorContactMarker.
  5. (Optional) Create floor contact planes for your character’s hands or feet.

    Select the ankle or wrist effector for which you want to create a floor contact plane, and then select Skeleton > Full Body IK > Add Floor Contact Plane.

    A floor contact plane for the selected effector appears. This plane determines a position in your scene beyond which the hands or feet affected by the floor contact markers cannot pass. By default, the floor height is 0 in the Y-axis and the scene grid is the hand and foot floor contact plane.

    Floor contact planes are useful because they make it easy to animate your character walking across uneven terrain like stairs or a rocky surface. A surface can also be rotated and the character reacts appropriately.

    NoteYou can change the floor height without having to create a floor contact plane by going to the hikFloorContactMarker node and adjusting the attributes related to floor contact planes. See hikFloorContactMarker.
  6. If you created a floor contact plane, translate the floor contact plane to the height at which you want your floor. You can also adjust the rotation of the plane to represent the incline or decline of the floor you want your model to stand on.