2009

Table Of Contents
As you drag the handle to some positions, you might notice the leg joints
flip abruptly (see the next figure for an example position). Its therefore
hard to control the leg positioning in this region.
The default IK handle (IK Rotate Plane handle) has manipulators you can
use to avoid joint flipping. With the handle selected, select Modify >
Transformation Tools > Move Tool, Rotate Tool, Scale Tool, Show
Manipulator Tool. Move the Pole Vector XYZ manipulator to a slightly
different position (see the following figure).
If this doesnt solve the problem, rotate the Twist manipulator to rotate
the leg. You can key the Pole Vector XYZ and Twist attributes to fixed
values to avoid the flipping as the character moves.
A more precise way to avoid joint flipping, which requires some initial
setup, is to use a Pole Vector Constraint. For more information see the
Maya Help.
3 Repeat the preceding steps for the right leg. (Create an IK handle for the
right_hip to right_ankle, then practice posing and animating the handle.)
NOTE If you want to move the entire skeleton, group the back_root and all
IK handles under a single node, select the group node, and then use the
Move tool. With this grouping, the motion of the entire skeleton wont conflict
with the keys you set for the handles.
To create, pose, and animate IK handles for the arms
1 Select Skeleton > IK Handle Tool.
Posing and animating using inverse kinematics | 317