Beyond the Lesson

In this lesson you learned how to:

• Retarget animation from one character to another.

  The Character Controls contain tools that let you set up a source and target character, and retarget animation.

• Use the HumanIK Controls to gain finer control over your retargeting result.

  The IK Blend T and IK Blend R sliders let you decide which solution (IK or FK) your skeleton follows:

  • At 1, the target body part reaches fully toward the source body part.
  • At 0.50, the target body part averages between the body part of the source and the character's position.
  • At 0, the effect on the body part is the same as disabling the option.

• Adjust the retargeting between your source and target characters using the Retarget Specific attributes.

  To control your retargeting result with more precision than shown the lesson, you can adjust the Reach, Pull, and Stiffness attributes.

  The Reach attributes let you define the translation and rotation reach between the target character and the source character. These values can be set per effector for each body part listed, including the head, chest, elbows, wrists, hands, knees, ankles, and feet.

  The Pull value of an effector determines the priority of that effector relative to the other effectors acting on the character. Setting a high Pull value makes the character appear to lean toward that effector with the rest of its body. Note that Pull applies only if the reach translation value on the effector is greater than 0. The pull effect is only apparent if the effector is beyond a certain distance from the body. For example, the pull effect on a wrist effector is only visible if the effector is so far from the body that straightening the arms doesn't allow the wrist bone to reach the effector. If Pull is set to 100 in this case, the rest of the body leans so that the wrist reaches the effector.

  The Stiffness value of an effector determines how strongly the effector maintains its original position, orientation, or angle when the pull of another effector affects it. Stiffness applies only if the reach rotation value on the effector is greater than 0.

  NoteAdjusting the Pull and Stiffness values is an advanced technique. For a normal retargeting operation, changing the default values is not recommended.