IK vs FK Rig Systems - Which should you use?

First Off!!

Where am I with my Animated Series West Of Perfy ?

        So far I have 4 characters with Proxy Rigs done and 3 with the Final rigs done. I do still need to add some extra controls and joints to the hair and hats of the characters though. I have recently added a new character named May. She will be the waitress at Heather's Bar which is the main hangout for the group of friends.

        I'm testing out the character rigs and checking render times by creating small comic style images based on events that have happened in our real lives. Seeing the final renders is getting really exciting. Seeing all this work I am putting into the series finally show something is amazing. Below is some of the test renders I have so far!

       The hardest part of this entire process is creating the stories. At first I knew it was going to be difficult but I was also thinking about the amount of work I needed to do just to get the characters and environment made. Now I'm at the point where I need the stories.I am working with my friends to come up with story ideas and writing the scripts. I have half of the first season of the the show started. We have a few scripts written but I feel they need tweaking before I am able to start anything.

It's already mid April and I have nothing animated.. This is going to be a tough few months in order for me to hit my release deadline for the show.

A few renders of the characters in the environments I have so far.

The group in Heather's Bar

May in Heather's Bar

Comic Test

And Now with the Technical part of this Post...

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Inverse Kinematics (IK) vs Forward Kinematics (FK)

        Understanding IK and FK rigs and the reasons for using both are essential to animating your characters easily and realistically. Over the years I've worked with tons of animators and no two animate the same way. Everyone has their own way that works for them. You may prefer to use IK arms instead of FK arms and totally OK, As long as you understand When you should be using FK instead of IK. 

        Forward Kinematic (FK) arms are when your arm is being driven by your shoulder first. So your hand reacts to the movement of your elbow, which is reacting to the movements of you shoulder, and of course your shoulder reacts to the movement of the Torso. FK arms are the standard rig system for animating because you are able to get clean, smooth arcs in your animations. 

        Inverse Kinematic (IK) arms are when your arm is being driven by your hand. This happens in situations where your characters hand is holding onto something that either moves on its own and doesn't move at all. You will always be able to tell when someone is using IK over FK because it will look like the hand has a mind of its own and doesn't react to the movement of the body. 

       You will find that you will be switching from IK to FK a lot when animating the arms, simply because we use our hands to grab onto objects constantly. With your legs however, you'll mostly be using IK systems, this is because your feet should rarely be sliding around. The only times your find you need to use FK legs is when you have your character sitting or laying and their weight is fully on another part of the body.

Rigging FK and IK 

       Rigging FK arms and Legs are very straight forward. They are literally just controls moving each Joint. There's nothing else to it. Rigging IK arms and legs are fairly simple as well but can sometimes you'll run into small problems and annoyances. Instead of having a control for each joint, you'll most likely just have two controls. One being the main control at the Wrist or foot, and the second control will be a Pole Vector control that controls the direction of the elbow or knee.

        The biggest problem I find I run into when rigging IK legs/arms, is the knee/elbow will sometimes pop out of place slightly when I attach the Pole Vector Constraint. From what I've found, this happens because of the orientation of the joint. A way to prevent this is by having the Pole Vector Control right at the knee/elbow joint. You can then attach the pole vector constraint and afterwards pull the control out away from the knee / elbow and you should end up with the joint not popping out of place. Now this is not the right way to fix the problem. Orienting your joints properly form the beginning is the best and easiest way to prevent any weird problems from happening throughout your rigging and animating process.

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If you are interested in seeing my work on other projects or want to look at my travels so far, feel free to check out my links below.

Portfolio - adamdewar.ca

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