Goal Object not bloody working

[peter66]

I'm seriously starting to think this is a LW issue because I've tried so much stuff...

I'm trying to get my character to look at a null with IK. Simple rig, boost IKd and there's an "ik stop" just below his neck.

Now, we're dealing with 4 bones:

FaceTIP (really small bone)
Face
UpperNeck
LowerNeck

I need the UpperNeck and Facebones to stay at right angles to each other so as to not distort the mesh... so basically I just need the "Face" bone to try to look directly at the Null (and to use the neckbones to achieve this).

Stop laughing, I thought this was no big ask either!

Could it be that I added the "FaceTIP" as an afterthought and so when I use the UP and DOWN arrowkeys to scroll through my bones, the "FaceTIP" DOESN'T come directly after "Face" (despite "FaceTip" being heirachially just under "Face" in scene editor)?

I've got no other ideas, the closest I can get is to have his face fully distort (with the top of his head trying to look at the null) and yeah I've tried messing with the constraints a lot.

Another thing, those big blue circles remain there even if IK booster gets turned off... and they're too big! Does anybody know how to make them smaller?

cheers
Pete

[SplineGod]

For the controller size go to the IKBoost Menu (lower right of screen while IKB is active) ------Options------Controller Size.

When you scroll down thru the bones the face tip bone doesnt came directly after the face bone because it wasnt created right after the face bone was created.
When you use the up or down arrow keys the items are selected based on the order they were created in not according to the hierarchy. What I did was to add these two commands to the ctrl + up and ctrl + dwn hotkeys: Select Parent Item and Select First Child Item. This allows you to use the control key with the arrow keys to select based on the hierarchy.

For your targetting issue. Put a null where you want it to be the target and keyframe it there. Now parent it to the neck bone. :)

[peter66]

Greetings God of Splines, and anybody else.

Your reply was really helpful, thanks.

Except... I still haven't solved the targetting issue, if I do as you say and put a null where I want it to be the target and keyframe it there. Then parent it to the neck bone... I just get a null that gets its movement and rotation from the neck bone but the character still isn't trying to look at the null.

If you can spare another minute?

Cheers
Pete

[SplineGod]

Are you trying to get the eyes or the whole head to target that null?

[peter66]

Head and eyes

[SplineGod]

The head will target ok the way I mentioned previously.
The eyes I usually do by parenting the eyes to the head bone and giving each eyes its own bone which is targetted at something.

[peter66]

But it doesn't work, there's something you're not telling me :p "Parenting the null to the neckbone" doesn't make him look at the null...

[SplineGod]

You have two issues:
1. Targetting or controlled the head
2. Targetting the eyes.

IF you are using IKBoost then putting a null out where you want the head to look and then parenting that null to the neck bone will basically give you a control handle to point or orient the head.

The eyes are another issue. If you want the eyes to be able to look at and follow some kind of eye target that works independantly of the orientation of the head then you need to target the eyes the way I described before. :)