Animation and Rigging Tools: FAQ, Known Issues and Feature Roadmap

ernstAlert · April 14, 2016, 10:33pm

Enter Reality;511833:

@

I’m having some strange issues while importing mocap animations…here is my usual workflow

Import FBX animation ( with custom skeletal hierarchy ) > run script retarget ( point and orientation constraint ) to the UE4 Mannequin > bake UE4 skeleton so that the animation is stored > export it > Add ( any ) character into a new scene > import the FBX animation

The issue comes when the animation ( the one baked on the UE4 mannequin ) is imported and I select IK to solve, which is some weird knee flipping for a couple of frames, and it’s completely random most of the time…
If I set the solve to FK only I don’t have this knee twisting behaviour, but I have a lot of feet sliding, which is annoying to fix ( while solving in IK I don’t have the feet sliding issue ).

So, is there a quick way to set a non-flipping-knee? maybe some kind of angular limitation based on the character orientation?

I’m not that advanced in scripting, so I’m not sure on how to proceed with it, and the olny solution that I’m using right now is to manually adjust the graph editor cruve for the knee twist, but a proper solution or an efficient advice on that will be great

If needed I can share some of the solved animation in order for you to test them

I’m guessing the rig that the motion is being imported onto is the mannequin itself? So the skeletons (positions and all) are entirely aligned?

Some possible things to try:

Did you check your curves on the baked mannequin skeleton after to make sure there was no weird euler flips? Maybe run an euler filter on that skeleton before exporting.
Import mocap to FK, and then use match over frame range to match the IK to the FK.

Let me know if either of those works for you!