IKbooster - should it stay? ... or go ?

[SaturnX]

I dont get IKB at all.
I understand its concept (obviously), like most other standard IK solutions.
But i dont get IKB.

Who really uses IKbooster?

[fronzel]

I use it every day, its easy.

[CB_3D]

While i can see that it, by itself, has possibilities, i consider it a slapped on solution...for now.

If it were 100% integrated it could be quite powerfull.

[Wonderpup]

I think the way we talk about 'ik booster' as if it were a thirdparty plugin says it all really.

I agree that it seems powerful, but the integration and documentation is bad.

I kind of gave up on using lightwave for character animation and went scuttling back to character studio, but I live in hope that NT can bring the current disparate parts together and give us a truly integrated CA toolset in the future- the current set up has just too many traps and pitfalls for the unwary- like frankenstiens monster, each part looks ok on its own, but when combined the result can be ugly.

[StereoMike]

Uh - I thought NT considers the CA part done? I wouldn't count on better CA tools, do you thought about buying Maestro?
It's on my list.

[cgbloke2004]

keep ikbooster!

[SplineGod]

Keep it. I use it. As with anything else its just learning when and how to use it. I think its going to be around for awhile. Id like to see NewTek add to it. Lightwaves been used for character work for years. Ive used it on some pretty intense character based projects and it works fine. Ive yet to see any software that doesnt have its traps or pitfalls. :)

[mrunion]

I say keep it -- and I've never used it!

SplineGod says keep it -- I'm inclined to lean towards the opinion of someone of his calibur.
T. Albee uses it -- his Charater Animation book mentions using it in the very first chapter, and what it's good for. Haven't read more of the book (just got it), but I'll be it's used a bit in there.

Again, I have NO experience with it. But why cut out tools? If you don't want to use it, just leave it. there are those that use it. Best of both worlds if it stays.

[SplineGod]

I agree. It makes more sense to leave it in and give ppl the choice to use it or not. :)

[ercaxus]

Keep it, improve it.

[WilliamVaughan]

Keep it, improve it.


Agreed. I use it for lots of things...just not everything :)

[A Mejias]

What are the times / situations that it's best not to use IK Booster?

[badllarma]

last time I used IKbooster every time I made an error (move an object then decide to move it less or further)the undo's did not seem to work with it I had to jump back and start from scratch, I gave up on it eventually.

Has it been improved since the 8.0 release? These days I use Maestro and really enjoy using it.

[WilliamVaughan]

If I'm doing full blown character animation I dont use it. if I need ropes, tails, or quick character animation for secondary characters I will throw IK Booster on and knock out the animation fast.

I havent used IKB on my main character in production yet...

[Chuck]

The primary intent for IK Booster was to have an IK system available that could be driven by dynamics. For full-on character animation you would use LightWave's original IK/FK system; for shots that require a dynamics effect you could use a version of the rig driven by IKB rather than the regular IK/FK system. It's relatively safe also to apply IKB to simple parts not directly connected to a character rig - ears that you want to wiggle, for example. Blending IKB into a regular LightWave IK/FK rig can introduce anomalies in the IK solution calculations that the IK/FK solver can't resolve.

IKB is also good for clamshell-type animation tasks such as - er, uh, - clamshells, opening and closing a laptop computer or a door, etc. Simple chains for parts that are independent of the full rig but need some clever articulation are also a good bet, such as mech models tend to have.

[SplineGod]

I do use it many times for full blown chracter animation. Theres a lot of advantages because IKB is designed to blend with and work with more standard setups. LWs IK has fulltime and parttime IK. THe parttime IK is sometimes useful for assisting wih poses but isnt all that convenient to use that way. Most of the time youll use full time IK. IKBoost uses parttime IK but is much better at it.

Fulltime IK stores the motion information in the goals. The items in the IK chain dont see any motions in their rotational channels. IK after all, is just another way to rotate bones or other items. Only when you bake do the bones see the rotational information. Since IKBoost is parttime IK the rotational data is stored in each item in the IKchain giving you IK and FK control at the same time.

Full time IK takes precidence over parttime IK. Any channels not controlled using full time IK can be controlled with IKBoost. This means for example that you can have full time IK on a leg but still be able to grab the knee controller to rotate the thigh.

IKB also has another interesting feature; any item parented to a bone (or other item) that is part of an IKBoost IK chain become part of the IKChain.
It can be used as a controller or temporarily 'Goal' object. Lets say that you parent the camera to an arm bone you could then animate the camera and the arm reacts. Later if you unparent the camera the motion that the bones saw is still there. It doesnt go away because you unparented the camera from the chain.

You can also have the controllers that are IKTargets (Goals) all at th wrist for example. Lets say the arm is divided into 3 IK chains - Collar bone to shoulder, Shoulder to elbow and Elbow to wrist. Each part of that chain can be all controlled from a single location.

IKBoost also allows you to essentially rerig the character on the fly. You can fix or unfix joints at anytime, modify the ikchain, add or remove goals and more all on the fly. Thats a huge advantage because many times a rig that might work in one situation might not in another. This gives added flexibility.

You can also load and save poses on a full character or parts of a character, the same for motions. You could also animate a rig using full time IK, Bake it and then apply IKBoost for tweaking.

Another thing to remember about IKBoost is that its as much an animation system as it is a rigging one and in many cases you really cant use one part without the other. :)

When to use IKBoost depends on the context its used in. IKBoost just doesnt work with bones. It works with any hiearchy of any items. If youre familiar with something like Shift Spline Transform, it can be used to control the nodes along a spline defomer. It can be used the same way with Sock Monkey. The possible uses exceed just what can be done with characters.
Once you get what it can do the more possibilities are opened up. :)

[Wonderpup]

The fact that even in this short thread we have people from newtek and Splinegod apparantly in disagreement as to the intended purpose of IK Boost again serves to demonstrate the confusion that arises from it. Surely it must be possible to trap this thing into some kind of definition- maybe a PDF detailing it's purpose and usage. At present it seems to create more problems than it solves.

[Chuck]

The documentation team is in the process of rewriting the IK Booster section of the manual, and has been able to get substantial additional input from Mr. Ino regarding his intentions for these tools. We're working on getting a much better write-up of the theory of operation into this as well, though since Mr. Ino is also quite busy with programming we may not manage to get all of this for the very next revision. We'll be making substantial corrections and changes to the section in the next rev in any case, though, with further revisions to come.

It isn't uncommon for users to find ways to use the tools that are beyond the scope of the developer's intent in creating them, and these applications may be completely unanticipated. Often this works out very well in the user's favor; however sometimes such uses will in fact turn out to be problematical to one degree or another, as would be the case in applying both standard IK and IKB to the same contiguous rig. A user who has been doing this may have not have gotten bitten by it yet, but it has the potential to do so.

[SplineGod]

I dont see any disagreement. William simply posted how HE PERSONALLY prefers to use it. Its hard to nail down just what the intended purpose of something might be. The programmer may have created IKB with an idea of what its purpose should be. I have no idea if Im using it within his intent or not. Does it really matter? What I use it for works fine for me. I doubt that the programmer thought about using IKB with things besides bones like the examples I mentioned.

The problem you have is that there is probably not one single tool in LW that has a very tightly defined purpose. The context in which you use a tool defines its usage.
It could be said that IK was intended to be used for character rigging but I use it all the time for things not related to characters. The same goes for a lot of tools.
THeres a TON of material out there now on characters and rigging yet theres still a large amount of people that dont get it.

How do you trap something into a definition when it has so many possible uses?
William mentioned that he uses IKB for hoses. I mentioned some things I use it for. It doesnt mean that the tool is somehow flawed or poorly defined.

As I mentioned before, a tools 'proper' useage is based upon the context its used in.
If a person doesnt understand the underlying principles of character rigging they will be limited as to how well they can apply existing tools to rigging. We see this all the time with the current toolset. The TECHNICAL part of rigging involves the use of a LOT of desparate tools; endomorphs, displacements, weight maps, bones, expressions, IK, FK, texture channels, UV Maps etc etc etc. Each of those by itself is a lot to learn let alone trying to figure out how to tie it all together to create something as specialized as a character rig. On top of that add in that most people dont understand what makes a character rig a good one. If you understand what a good rig must be able to do then you can look at the tools and determine how to use them to create that good rig. How well you can apply those tools also depends on how well you understand the tools themselves. Again, I stress that most people probably dont understand the current toolset, much of which has been around a long time. Theres a big difference between defining HOW a tool works and WHAT it can be used for. I dont see one bit of disagreement between what William said and what I said. :)

To illustrate what I said, set up a simple IK chain in LW the standard way. Apply match goal and maybe even some kind of expression or motion modifier on a channel of one of the joints. It doesnt matter if it even works.
Now apply IKBoost on the main object. Youll see that IKBoost sees LWs IK, sees the expression or motion modifier and sees the match goal. The IKB controllers CHANGE in appearance to reflect that information. This tells me that IKBoost was intended to do just what it says; to BOOST the current IK/FK tools instead of REPLACE them. :)

[StereoMike]

@Larry

Wow, sounds great expecially the part with "fixing bones on the fly".
Is there a tutorial availbale for your approach? I would subscribe.

Mike

[SplineGod]

The primary intent for IK Booster was to have an IK system available that could be driven by dynamics. For full-on character animation you would use LightWave's original IK/FK system; for shots that require a dynamics effect you could use a version of the rig driven by IKB rather than the regular IK/FK system. It's relatively safe also to apply IKB to simple parts not directly connected to a character rig - ears that you want to wiggle, for example. Blending IKB into a regular LightWave IK/FK rig can introduce anomalies in the IK solution calculations that the IK/FK solver can't resolve.

IKB is also good for clamshell-type animation tasks such as - er, uh, - clamshells, opening and closing a laptop computer or a door, etc. Simple chains for parts that are independent of the full rig but need some clever articulation are also a good bet, such as mech models tend to have.

Sorry Chuck, Im going to have to disagree somewhat here. :) Im not trying to be disrespectful believe me. Its just that I use these tools everyday and I have emailed Ino about some of these questions in the past when running into trouble. :)
IKB is designed to work standalone in some cases. In most its design to work with a 'standard' IK/FK setup. That is apparent because of what I mentioned earlier that IKB specifically sees and displays on each node what is applied to it including LWs full time IK or match goal.
The demonstrations posted by NewTek in the past and rigs supplied by NewTek also show IKB being applied to full characters to demonstrate the use a character rigging tool while dynamics werent even mentioned in those instances. Ears being wiggled etc cant be done except on a full rig. Theres no way to apply IKB to just part of a rig. The only way to do that is if the part youre applying it to is a separate object (which ears typically arent).
Blending IKB with a standard IK/FK rig CAN introduce anomalies if improperly used. JUST using standard IK/FK on a rig by itself can introduce anomalies, again if improperly used. Examples are joints flipping and popping, rigs wobbling or shaking etc. Some built in tools will not work with a standard IK/FK rig as well such as expressions, targetting and others. Again its knowing when to use the tools. Most of the time figuring out what is 'imprope' useage depends on the situation. You just have to experiment (which I do a lot of) :)

[SplineGod]

@Larry

Wow, sounds great expecially the part with "fixing bones on the fly".
Is there a tutorial availbale for your approach? I would subscribe.

Mike

What I mean by 'fixing' them is that you can pin and unpin any controller as you go. Fix is the IKB term for locking or pinning a controller. Since IKB isnt fulltime IK is means that what you do to a controller or goal feeds keyframe data directly to a joint or channel. So if you pin and unpix (fix or unfix) and joint (controller) or Goal it doesnt effect the keyframe data feed into that joint or other joints up until that point. This allows you to change the rig as you go without altering the current keyframe data. The IKBoost DVD I have does cover that to some degree. I would setup a single chain of bones, apply IKB and try it :)

[pooby]

IMO...

It should stay, to please those that like it..

but the traditional system ought to be improved and stabilised.. and the whole way IK interacts with constraints (motion modifiers) needs addressing to eliminate strange exeptions and unnecessary limitations.

XSI is a great example of good stable integration of IK and constraints... I suggest Newtek look in this direction for inspiration.

[SplineGod]

I agree with that. Doing that for the traditional system will only help IKBoost as well.
Going with relativity is a big step in that direction since it doesnt have many of the limitations with regards to expressions reading IK controlled channels. :)

[Chuck]

Sorry Chuck, Im going to have to disagree somewhat here. :) Im not trying to be disrespectful believe me.

There's nothing disrespectful about having differing opinions on a topic - even with the guy who wrote the tool! My comments in that message in particular are pretty much word-for-word from Ino at our last dev team gathering.

:)

[SplineGod]

LOL! Now thats interesting considering that some of my comments are based on emails from the same :)
The comments about doors and clamshells is also kind of confusing. If he is referring to the Link controller in IKB thats one thing I dont use that much since there are easier ways IMO to do that. :)
I also forgot to mention that in my case I tend to use IKB on the upper body of characters to get the speed of quickly posing using IK but having the tweakability of FK at the same time :)
Something else I forgot to mention too was that you cant really use IKB dynamics to something like a rag doll simulation because it doesnt effect the root bone just the children. I hope that gets changed. :)

[Chuck]

And as we both mentioned, it isn't uncommon that users do things well beyond what the developers originally had in mind. And that's a good thing! :)

[Nitisara]

We have chosen LW for our primary 3D tool because it has such tool as IKBooster. Previously we used Animanium plugin, it was hard to integrate but results were incredible in animation quality and production speed.
Since LW 8.x has the same tool completely integrated, we are happy to use it for complete rig in 30 characters in our animation project. We don't use standard IK rig at all.

Advantages of IKBooster:
1) fast and easy character rigging and re-rigging (invaluable during setup phase)
2) easy and fast operation (even for 100+ bones characters)
3) outstanding quality of animation (I consider it to be as manual mocap)
4) all keys are directly on bones, with several keying options
5) simultaneous IK and FK control
6) complete integration with other animation tools

Disadvantages of IKBooster:
1) fixes are not animatable (not fixing bones between keyframes)
2) handles don't depent upon bones size (they clutter complex parts, especially for small characters)
3) IKBooster blocks when using another motion handlers plugins

If fixes would be animatable, IKBooster will become ultimate animation solution.
We don't use dynamics possibilities of IKBooster, so I cannot comment its dynamics features.

Interesting to note, that when new animators come, they don't understand IKBooster advantages even after reading manual and testing example scenes, until they are directly shown how IKBooster can work. Maybe this is because they try to use their standard animation approach to this unique tool.

[SplineGod]

Very cool. :) What are you guys working on?

[ercaxus]

Having the ability to assign shortcuts would greatly improve IKB in my opinion. It would make fix/unfix process easier or maybe I'm just extremely lazy :) I love shortcuts.

Other than that, for hybrid rigs, if IKB could be applied only to selected chain for arms/tails etc it would be super-cool.

[SplineGod]

I agree about the hotkeys. What is nice though is that everything you need to d on the rig is done right there without having to do into drop down menus.

If youre using a hybrid rig is pretty easy to isolate what IKBoost is controlling to particular hiearchies. Again, full time IK overrides any IKB settings.

[Nitisara]

Very cool. :) What are you guys working on?
We are working on 26 min animation film, fairytale.

[Nitisara]

Having the ability to assign shortcuts would greatly improve IKB in my opinion.
Agree on this!

[Wonderpup]

I do understand that it's impractical to try to document every possible use for every tool, but I feel it should be possible to at least define the intended use for which a tool was designed, after all this intent must exist in order for the tool to have been created in the first place.

In the case of IK boost, I do not feel the intent is clear, again as this thread itself demonstrates, and I think it is this ambiguity that has led to it being seen as a problem.

[ercaxus]

also another "lazy man's idea":
when a key (ctrl is taken) is down none of the nodes down the chain get any world-rotation during that mouse click/move.
explanation 1: it's something like fixing all the nodes down the chain (but without all those glitches)
explanation 2: it acts like having the first(top) of the chain point-constrained to the node.

edit: also some other key to temporarily fix the parent node would be sweet :D

[Dodgy]

I definitely say keep IKB, I find it invaluable as an animation tool. However, there are improvements which need looking at, to make it a full part of the LW CA toolset.

1> Make it work with Motion Mixer. At the moment if you add a motion mixer plugin to a bone controlled by IKB, IKB will then fail to control that bone at all as it thinks the bone is being controlled by motion mixer. This happens even if you deactivate the Actor. This is the most important as you can't use the two most powerful CA features of LW together at the moment.

2> Make the IK handles proportional in size to the bone length. Small bones in the hands can become overwhelmed by handles, while handles in the arms can be tiny.

3> If a joint has an IKstop option activated, it would be handy if IKB didn't keyframe above that joint.

4> Add a 'Selected Items' option to the IKB item menu so you can edit multiple joints' dynamics settings easily.

[Nitisara]

3> If a joint has an IKstop option activated, it would be handy if IKB didn't keyframe above that joint.
It is possible by "Current Item" keying option.

[Dodgy]

You're right.... I thought current only applied to the 'current' bone, but that is helpful :)

[ercaxus]

Wouldn't it be nice if IKB had another mode which used the position of the nodes instead of rotation of bones. It would be like having a goal at every bone which you wouldn't want to do with LW's IK. If it works like that maybe It wouldn't be necessary to bind/bake so frequently.(maybe it is already not necessary and I'm slightly dumb :D )

edit:I don't mean the move/rotate option in IKB menu.

[Emmanuel]

Yeah, IKB is another perfect example of a lack of guidance during LW's development.
Its perfectly clear to see that ino did his own thing, has problems explaining it and as a result, the explanation in the manual is rather an interpretation of something Ino wanted to communicate.
Unless IKB gets really integrated, it will never be fully understood or used,
integrated means: instead of beeing the way it is now, it should be integrated in LW's GUI scheme (if You can call it that way) and work within our standard IK panels, not another GUI invented by someone (like SasLite, Motion Mixer, Hypervoxels...)
Every tool needs to be as style guide conform as possible, please NT, how hard can THAT be ? It worked with the particles and dynamics !

[SplineGod]

2> Make the IK handles proportional in size to the bone length. Small bones in the hands can become overwhelmed by handles, while handles in the arms can be tiny.

3> If a joint has an IKstop option activated, it would be handy if IKB didn't keyframe above that joint.

4> Add a 'Selected Items' option to the IKB item menu so you can edit multiple joints' dynamics settings easily.

One thing that helps is to lock bones that may not be used much during animation, This makes the nodes disappear. Ill create selection sets so that I can easily lock/unlock groups of items.

You can also edit the dynamics settings on multiple controllers by setting the keyframe menu to parent, child etc. :)

[SplineGod]

Yeah, IKB is another perfect example of a lack of guidance during LW's development.
Its perfectly clear to see that ino did his own thing, has problems explaining it and as a result, the explanation in the manual is rather an interpretation of something Ino wanted to communicate.
Unless IKB gets really integrated, it will never be fully understood or used,
integrated means: instead of beeing the way it is now, it should be integrated in LW's GUI scheme (if You can call it that way) and work within our standard IK panels, not another GUI invented by someone (like SasLite, Motion Mixer, Hypervoxels...)
Every tool needs to be as style guide conform as possible, please NT, how hard can THAT be ? It worked with the particles and dynamics !

Actually Id rather see the rest of LW move towards the way IKBoost works.
Everything you need to know about your rig is right there. You can immediatly see what settings are on a joint, if it has IK, if channels are locked, if its fixed, if its got expressions etc. You dont have to click on it and go to half a dozen menus to see whats applied to a bone. You can get to the graph editor pretty easily on just the items you want as well. Its very efficient. I hate having to jump around to so many places just to setup a rig. :)

[geothefaust]

As I haven't used Lightwave for animation yet, I'd like to see it have similar rigging to XSI. I was messing around with it lastnight, and it was so very intuitive, it was even pleasant to use.

Of course, leave IKBooster in, too. As it does seem to have a place in LW. :)

[Dirk]

I like rigging in LW, it's relativly easy and very flexible. Anyway, I really would like to see a video on how to animate with IKB (maybe a walk cycle), I messed a whole day with it, finaly saw some light (= was able to pose a character), just to notice what it means that joints cannot be fixed between keyframes. But if you mix IKB with "normal" IK (goals and all), I must admit I see no advantage of IKB for character animation (which very likely means I don't get it).

[ericsmith]

The problem I have with IK booster is that it seems like they tried to make it a real easy one-click IK solution, but it doesn't come close to working that way in reality. If you simply apply IK booster to a normal character and try to begin animating it, you'll end up with a mess very quickly. So you end up doing more work to undo all the automatic stuff and get the rig working at a useable state then you would starting from the other end and manually setting everything you want.

What I would prefer is to integrate something like IK booster into the motion options panel, as a "non-fulltime" IK option that could be applied on a per-bone basis just like normal IK. This would link bones together, so that if you moved one, the rest would follow along like a chain. The kicker is that each bone would be keyframed, so FK wouldn't be overridden.

As far as dynamics go, there really should be a dynamics option that allows you to translate non-mesh objects like nulls and bones based on physical forces rather than just displacing vertices in a mesh. This would be easy to implement, and would make bone dynamics possible, as well as the added benefits of applying physics simulations to nulls.

I'll admit that what I'm suggesting here would strip away a lot of features found in the current IK booster implementation, but it seems clear to me that most users are not understanding or utilizing most of these features anyways. You could blame the users for this, but to me, this is where the constant request for "integrated solutions" really starts to make sense. If Newtek wants to beef up IK functionality, this functionality should be in the form of additional options for the current IK system, and be accessable through the motion options panel, the way current IK is. Instead, IK booster is an independant entity, tacked on to the character as a plugin. This kind of thinking fractures the workflow, and makes most of us want to just ignore IK booster altogether.

Eric

[John Melvin]

IK booster crashes LW 8.5. Never been able to get a fix on this from Newtek.

John

[SplineGod]

I think LW is easy to rig in as well but the reality is that most people dont get rigging in general. Thats probably one of the reasons why people by Maestro in the first place :)

Mixing normal LW IK with IKB does have advantages. I typically use Full time IK on legs where its usually needed but use IKB on the upper body where I usually use FK but sometimes need or use IK as a pose assist.

Most people who do rigging in LW are used to a rig having no IK and then having to do in and apply it to each channel needed. IKBoost is the opposite, everything has IK on it and you use IK stop to define the ends of chains. In many cases its at least as fast if not faster to do that.

I dont see IKBoost as an independant entity. It blends well with the current IK sytem and it feeds its data in as standard keyframes which are editable in the dopetrack, dopesheet and graph editor. Even the dynamics feed in its data in the same way. Its a bit like editing mocap and its not hard to filter down the keys to something that one can animate on top of.

I also agree that the current tools should be better blended and beefed up.

Hey John,
Im using IKB in LW8.5 with no crashing. When does it crash on you?

[Librarian]

The problem I have with IK booster is that it seems like they tried to make it a real easy one-click IK solution, but it doesn't come close to working that way in reality. If you simply apply IK booster to a normal character and try to begin animating it, you'll end up with a mess very quickly. So you end up doing more work to undo all the automatic stuff and get the rig working at a useable state then you would starting from the other end and manually setting everything you want.

What I would prefer is to integrate something like IK booster into the motion options panel, as a "non-fulltime" IK option that could be applied on a per-bone basis just like normal IK. This would link bones together, so that if you moved one, the rest would follow along like a chain. The kicker is that each bone would be keyframed, so FK wouldn't be overridden.

As far as dynamics go, there really should be a dynamics option that allows you to translate non-mesh objects like nulls and bones based on physical forces rather than just displacing vertices in a mesh. This would be easy to implement, and would make bone dynamics possible, as well as the added benefits of applying physics simulations to nulls.

I'll admit that what I'm suggesting here would strip away a lot of features found in the current IK booster implementation, but it seems clear to me that most users are not understanding or utilizing most of these features anyways. You could blame the users for this, but to me, this is where the constant request for "integrated solutions" really starts to make sense. If Newtek wants to beef up IK functionality, this functionality should be in the form of additional options for the current IK system, and be accessable through the motion options panel, the way current IK is. Instead, IK booster is an independant entity, tacked on to the character as a plugin. This kind of thinking fractures the workflow, and makes most of us want to just ignore IK booster altogether.

Eric

I couldn´t agree more.

[ericsmith]

I dont see IKBoost as an independant entity. It blends well with the current IK sytem and it feeds its data in as standard keyframes which are editable in the dopetrack, dopesheet and graph editor. Even the dynamics feed in its data in the same way. Its a bit like editing mocap and its not hard to filter down the keys to something that one can animate on top of.

I can go along with the fact that IK booster applies keyframes to the bone's channels just like anything else, but for me, it's the interface concept that feels disconnected. I don't want to be to arbitrary here--I'm generally in favor of the whole idea of plugins to do certain things (ie. deformation plugins and motion plugins make a lot of sense to me), but in this case, it just doesn't "feel" right. I'd really like to see the functionallity of IK booster integrated into the motion options of the bones.

Eric

[Emmanuel]

Or, like Larry said, the other way around, make the motion visible close to the animated item.Not a bad idea.

[lwaddict]

Forgive me for not reading the whole thread but here's my two cents...

just like any other plug, tool, etc...
it's got it's uses. It stays.

I just hate it when a tool is removed.
I sort of get used to knowing it's there then BAM, it's gone in a future version.
Why not just leave it there and we can remove it from the menu if we're not using it? Sort of like, self induced censorship...if you don't like it, don't use it.

But I've had a few successes with this one and would like to keep it in the arsenal.

Again, just my two cents.

[Dodgy]

One thing to note is that IKB is getting updated with every revision. There are things in there now like Handles which weren't in the 8 version, presumably as things get requested or better workflow is thought of.

[pooby]

The problem I have over the whole IK Boost issue is as follows.

It appeared to me when 8 came out that there is no central strategical plan in mind at Newtek regarding the evolution of the Character animation tools.

The reason I felt this was that the purpose of IK boost was not made at all clear. Demo's showed characters fully rigged with IK boost, and yet, as soon became apparent upon release, this is not a usable option.

This said to me, that Newtek themselves didn't understand the nature of the tool or its uses.

One could argue that users find uses that the programmers didn't intend and that this is often the nature of CG, but regarding tools to animate Characters with, you need Stable non jitterry IK and a great constraints system that works fully with the IK amongst other things.

Newtek decided to leave the main IK solver untouched, and its modifiers are full of exeptions and caveats.
THIS, in my opinion is where they should have FIRST directed their efforts.

BUT.. IK boost SEEMS to have been developed almost independantly, then Newtek did their best to make it appear to be part of LW. Its unclear purpose has put many people off using it except for for the few obvious advantages it has.
Certain people like Larry (Splinegod) might sing it's praises, but I suspect that even Larry would have been happier with rock solid IK and a whole new set of motion modifiers (all sharing a unified standard interface and not, some of them working before IK, some after etc) with a well thought out method of linking one to another to produce almost infinite possibilities in terms of motion.

[Nitisara]

I want to confirm that IKBooster is completely integrated with standard IK system. SplineGod has demonstrated me interactively this feature, and including the possibility to apply IKBooster on IK targets (advised by SplineGod), plus possibility to hide IKB controls from viewport by locking bones (also indicated in one thread by SplineGod), it is easy to make solid rig, featuring IK and IKB simultaneously, controlled by IKB interface only.
:lightwave

[StereoMike]

Then someone make a tutorial or video (I'd even buy it).

[SplineGod]

Then someone make a tutorial or video (I'd even buy it).

Hey Mike,
Ive had one out for a few months. Im also working on a more advanced video as well.

Nitisara,
I enjoyed the chats. I was also very impressed with the stuff you guys are turning out. You should post it online somewhere. Thanks again for sharing. :)