Keyframing Joints

[bayareadeck]

Whats the problem with placing keyframes right on the joint nodes ?

[gautham.chandran47]

Depends on which type of rig you're working on. If the rig you're using have constraints and IK handles controlling joints, then placing keys directly on the joints might break the other controls functionality or even give unexpected results upon modifying. But if it's a simple rig without any constraints or handles or other systems driving the joint then there might not be any issues. Also note that it all depends on the system and which stage you're in. We're often do direct changes to the joint animation to already exported characters in the game engine ( plotted controller animation to joints ). 

Hope this helps.

[bayareadeck]

Thank you so much for that information.
My thought was that maybe I could rig a character
without FK controls or constraints and have a GUI with
buttons coded directly to the FK joints, making the rig way lighter,
and no FK controls you have to select or look at. There would be, of course,
IK handles and SDK. Does that idea have a chance ?

[hamsterHamster]

When you ask about such chance, then you should answer yourself - For what purpose am I building the rig? What kind of animation the rig is intended? What is my rigging and animation budget (time, money)?

Your aim is to find a sweetspot, where your rig de-clutters the GUI and gives sufficient control over the character - e.g. taking an apple requires IK; arm walk-swing, however, can be achieved quicker with FK. Putting everything under buttons, linked attributes is not always the best solution, as you still need selection handles and manipulators, instead of numerous fields and buttons.

[bayareadeck]

Yes, thank you, and understood.
I also agree with that.

[gautham.chandran47]

Control rig without manipulators showing up in the viewport and using a GUI does sounds promising but the fact we'll be keying directly to the joints while IK is active is bound to be a mess. IK handles ( RPS ) tend to maintain the angle of the joints when they applied the IK handle. So if we were to modify the joint rotation then IK handle will offset the rest of the joints to maintain the initial angle of IK. 

If lighter rig is you're after then consider an all FK rig with constraints. It's much lighter than using IK handles and other CPU bound deformers.

Hope this helps.