I have locked two "feet" bones and use them as targets for the shin bones. On frame 0, translating the hip bone rotates the leg bones as expected and the feet stay on the ground: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AsNedAPvuG2thWXz4Ee ... k?e=PVmUnr
I'll try to check out your file later this afternoon, but a few notes about 'locking feet'...
You're using the terms Target and Locked Bone together, but normally, these are two different methods for locking down a limb, and you would choose one method or the other, but not both.
If you're using Lock Bone, this should be applied at the end of an ik chain. So, for a typical three bone leg setup of LegUp, LegLo, and Foot, the Lock Bone keyframe would be applied on the Foot bone at the frame you wish to lock it at. Then, you can unlock the Foot at a later frame when the character needs lift his leg.
The advantage with Lock Bone is that it locks both the position and rotation for as long as you need it to be locked. The downside (IMO) is that it can be trickier to animate than using a Target bone. (Read on.)
Target Bone is the second way to lock down a limb. It's not actually 'locking down' the limb, but, in the leg example, the Foot is effectively 'locked' when the Target bone is not moving. To set this up, you create a separate target bone (I typically call this bone FootTgtL or FootTgtR,) Then, you set your LegLo bone's Target to the target bone in the Bone Constraint panel. Additionally, you should set your foot bone to have Independent Angle. Now, when you animate the target, the leg will follow, and when the target is static, the leg stays locked in position and rotation, even when the body is moving.
The advantage of the Target Bone method is that it's easier and more obvious to animate; i.e., when the target is moving, the leg follows, when it's not moving, the leg stays locked. No need to keyframe a separate 'Lock Bone' property. The downside is that you need to animate the foot's rotation separately, although IMO, animating the foot's rotation is actually an advantage.
Another advantage to using Target bone is that you can parent the target bone to other bones for different effects; for example, if you have a target bone for the wrist joint, you can pin the hands to the hip bone; now, when you animate the torso, the hand stays 'locked' to the hip, even when you bend the spine.
Tip: I normally use Target bones for the legs only. I only use Target bones for the arms if I need to pin the character's hands to something, like the hip or head bone. Otherwise, I find it's easier to animate the arms without a Target bone. Of course, you should do what works easiest for you.
Hope this helps.
Last edited by Greenlaw on Sun Apr 04, 2021 1:45 am, edited 2 times in total.
Thanks for the explanation Greenlaw!
Actually the "lock bone" checkmarks of my target bones are greyed out, so I think it doesn't make a difference if a target bone is locked or not.
I think I've set up the target bones like you described. They don't have parents, but when I move the hip bone with "manipulate bones" on any other frame than frame 0, they move along with it.
Your targets aren't working because you have all the bones keyframed in your smart bone action. In any action, you only want to keyframe the specific bones you want animated by the action. And in SB actions, any bones controlled by the SB cannot be controlled manually, or by things like bone targets.
Lock Bone is greyed out because those bones don't have any parent bones, and bone locking only effects chains of at least two bones. If you temporarily parent them to another bone, you'll be able to uncheck bone locking, but it's not doing anything as is.
I used the bone - freeze pose command at the beginning of the action to create a keyframe for all bones. Now I understand this is not a good idea when creating actions...
Probably a better method to only include the bones that are moved in the action is bone - freeze selected bones.
I had to delete the action and create it again, couldn't find the keyframe of the target bone. But now it works, thanks a lot for your help!
And Happy Easter !
Don’t sweat it; it’s a common mistake. I still do that occasionally and I’ve been using Moho for several years. The important thing is to understand the issue so you know how to fix it when it happens.
BTW, there’s nothing wrong with freezing the entire rig during animation...it’s a fast way to create a hold pose and I do it all the time. But, as you discovered, you don’t want to do this inside a Smart Bone Action. It should only be done in the Mainline.
Tip: If you have Auto-Freeze enabled, you should probably disable it. It’s ok to have it on when you want to animate strictly pose to pose, but this feature makes it difficult to create more nuanced animations. If you need to freeze the rig, it’s better to use the Freeze Pose command; IMO, it’s better still to select only the bones you need to freeze (like only the skeleton,) and use the Freeze Selected Bones command. This way, you’re less likely to get unintentional keyframing.
Last edited by Greenlaw on Sun Apr 04, 2021 6:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Another tip: if you haven’t already done so, set the Default Interpolation to Copy Previous Key. This makes Moho use the interpolation mode on the preceding key, which is usually what you want. (This behavior is similar to After Effects.) You can change the selected key’s mode by right-clicking on it, and if this is the last key, the next key will use this mode.
!