To pose you character, rotate the circles that surround the body. This should be a rather intuitive process. Many good tutorials about posing in Blender are available on the internet. Forward and inverse kinematicsArms, legs and fingers can be posed with two different methods: Forward Kinematics (FK) and Inverse Kinematics (IK). IK is useful when the character is interacting with other objects, e.g. when he is walking on the ground (Leg IK) or grabbing an object (Arm IK). However, it is easier to make the limbs swing in natural-looking arcs with FK.Arms FKThe FK controls for the arms are located on bone layer 4, and also on layer 1. Use the circles to control the rotation of the joints.Arms IKThe IK controls for the arms are located on bone layer 3. Use the HandIK bone to control the location and rotation of the hand, and the ElbowIK bone to control the location of the elbow.Legs FKThe FK controls for the legs are located on bone layer 6, and also on layer 1. Use the circles to control the rotation of the joints.Legs IKThe IK controls for the legs are located on bone layer 5. The feet are rigged using an inverse foot setup. Use the LegIK bone to control the location and rotation of the foot, and the KneeIK bone to control the location of the knee. The rotation of the foot and toes can be further controlled by the FootIK and ToeIK bones. Dynamical FK/IK switchingIn some situtation we want to use both FK and IK in the same action, e.g. if the character first swings his arms (Arm FK), then picks up some object (Arm IK), and finally throws the object away (Arm FK). The MHX character can blend betweeen FK and IK if it is loaded with the FK/IK switch enabled. See further http://sites.google.com/site/makehumandocs/blender-export-and-mhx/blender-export-and-mhx-249/fk-ik Finger FKThe FK controls for the fingers are located on bone layer 8. Use the circles to control the rotation of the joints.Finger IKThe IK controls for the fingers are located on bone layer 7. Each finger is controlled by a single bone. Scale this bone to bend the fingers, and rotate it to rotate the fingers. Move the knuckle bone if the finger bends the wrong way.I am not happy with the way finger IK works in this rig, and recommend against using it.  Problems with IK rigsIn Blender, IK chains work best if the character is modelled with slightly bent joints: elbows, knees, and knuckles. By bending the limbs, Blender gets a hint about the direction that the joints are supposed to bend. However, the MakeHuman mesh was not modelled in this way. You can improve the predictability of the IK controls by making the following modifcations to your character:1. Pose the character in a pose with the limbs slightly bent, using the IK controls. 2. Apply the Armature modifier to the mesh. 3. Apply the current pose as rest pose (Ctrl-A) 4. Parent the mesh to the armature, not creating any vertex groups. 5. Press the "Make real" button in the armature modifier. Unfortunately, it is not possible to apply the armature modifier to a mesh with shapekeys. Hence if you bend the joints for better IK you lose all morph targets.  FaceFacial poses are controlled by the bones on the face panel, which is located on bone layer 9. It should be rather intuitive to see which bone controls which face; playing around with the controls is a great way to find out. The connection between bones and shapes is defined in the file pydrivers.py.IMPORTANT: Face poses will not work unless 1. the file pydrivers.py has been loaded into a text editor window in Blender before import and 2. the Facial shapes button is active in the MHX interface. pydrivers.py can be found in the importers/mhx/blender249 folder in the MakeHuman directory. The eyes look at the gaze bones, located on the same panel. The left and right eyes have independent gaze controls, but they are parented to the middle gaze bone to move both eyes in sync. It is easier to work if the face panel is in wireframe mode. To this end, press the W button circled in red. The import script can not do this, because I have not found a way to select the W button from python.  Bone layersFor reference, here is a list of all bone layers.
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Posing a character in Blender 2.49 |