This is why I try to have my walk/run on a world axis first, and then rotate after, or check it as I go. Can't always do that, sometimes the ground is uneven. I am afraid to even imagine the trial and error you took to figure this out, but I am grateful you did it, and thanks for sharing. Wow!. Long live Lollipop Man!
This is a great tutorial -- a tough topic handled very well. Too many tutorials cover the simple case and ignore everything else, which is why they don't ever talk about the root controller. Thanks!
thank you man!, It took me time to figure out to be able to explain something so complex in a more "general" or "generic" way thank you for appreciating it, I hope this helps also develop the tools to empower this workflows too!
This is becoming one of the most useful B3D channels out there, and this is not only useful for Blender users. This is universally useful for animation.
took me 30min to figure out what you did to your bones so the keyframes are based on its parent's space rather than its own. Mine didn't do that, so i really didn't get what was happening there. Turns out, it's the "Local Location" checkbox in the relation panel, which makes sense, truth be told. I think this should be mentioned at some points, because the "Y is forward" advantage of this technique really depends on it
Thanks man, because of you I finally understand how Root Motion animations are supposed to work. I was having an issue with them in iClone 8 and now I know that it's a bug in their software that is screwing up the alignment on imported Root Motion animations where the character's turn.
Oh mate imagine if all that was a script and everytime your character zigged and zagged you could just re-alighn you root based of the handle that needed massageing. That would be such a great script to have. Soooooooooo soooo handy.
I got one, in maya and in blender, but they havent been released yet. Now i magine something better, you check a box in blender move the parent where you want, untick it, carry on.
Gracias, me ha servido mucho, hice un ciclo de caminata, luego movi el root para hacer un bloqueo rapido, pero al querer refinar era un dolor de cabeza, hasta hacer el bake y quitar el root
This video is a goldmine of information omg. Thank you so much! A lot of tutorials for attack combos animate off the root, and I was really struggling to figure out how to get that root back under the character’s feet! Especially for game animation purposes where the root IS the collision capsule location. Now w/ this technique I can employ rootmotion, OR just zero out the root again once all the constraints are gone! I was afraid I’d have to remake everything bc I animated the cog and IK instead of the root, ahh what a relief knowing that’s not the case. Thanks again! :^]
Hi Luciano Another great video, great knowledge. For several days I have been trying in many ways to get the effect to make the character go in a specific direction after the cutscene I tried to get this effect whole day so that after the end of the first phase of the cutscene the character would be in the center of the root, so that I could use to use the walk cycle, but at this stage of the animation it was very difficult. Your tutorial helped me a lot - thank you very much, I love your channel, so much great knowledge. You saved me another day trying to match my character to the center root bone I have one problem - I tried to do it on the linked rig, but when I added contrain in the empty object and tried to select rig. Because the rig is linked, contraint in empty detected rig as a normal object and I can't select bone in empty object constrain. I solved the problem - first I hide the collection with the linked rig, so as not to break anything there. In another collection I added the rig itself in append mode and set it to local options by clicking the chain icon in the tabs on the right. In this rig, I assigned a specific animation in the action editor (the same one we're working on). Thanks to this, to such a local rig I could already pin specific bones to contrains in empty objects. After bake action on empty object, the rest of the process is the same as yours. I found an interesting way to match root to character position. The condition is that the torso bone (in rigify) must have zero rotations in the x and y axes. Then on the root bone I add contrain copy rotation and turn off the Z axis, next add copy location on all axes. Then bake action on the root bone even in one frame and we have a perfectly matched root bone. Again thank you very much Best regards Michael
Oh thanks Michael!, I'm glad it was of help and thank you for sharing your own findings and workarounds!, I'll likely bump to some similar situations soon, so it's good i can come back and check out how you solved it! Again thank you for being here and sharing your knowledge too! Best, Luciano.
This is very similar to the Richard Lico workflow where he uses the existing animation, to drive another one to create drag/overlap etc. Think anything dragging behind hair, ears, coat tails, belts and so on. I think you should do tutorial on how to do that in Blender. :D
I recently watched a video about using the root bone for use in games using Maya as an example, where a person could freely move the root bone and the model remained in place, he did not make any additional manipulations. Perhaps this program has a function that blender does not have.
I think maya has a tool now to do that not many people know about it so people make it this way im explaining normally. also with animbot it makes it pretty seasy too.
It seems to me that 3D animation is crying out for a new, more intuitive way of working. I have no idea what form that would take but I hope someone is working on it :-)
@@lucianomunoz I've been messing with this in the past days, though, and I'm wondering -- would it not be more efficient now to use the anim layers addon (which I found on your channel -- thank you) to effect a root bone edit?
Not in this particular case and also I make most of my videos assuming people don't have the addons I tell them to have because not everyone can afford them or can buy them
@@lucianomunoz I am sorry to keep bugging you but I'm really curious -- why not in this case? The layer method works pretty well but when I tried to effect a rotation, it started to get weird. So I haven't figured that out all the way yet.
One question, if i want a character moving through space, like a run cycle, is there is a better way then animating 'in place' then moving it through a motion path and which is also which doesn't take alot of time??
what you'd want to do is do what you described for the blocking, and then with this technique get rid of the animation of the root so you can keep all your character moving around in the world but with the root in one place aligned to what will suit you best.
Im weird my first time making root motion animation and I went straight for a 4 legged dragon fml. I got it working but im trying to find out if they are better ways to do it. Good learning process though XD
Nice tutorial! I also have this question about where to put the root when you animate a more complex scene, say a fight scene. The characters may move more in a random pattern, not along a straight line, and the camera angles and movements change frequently. In this more general case, is there a good way to place the root bone?
It will depend, you have to try to place it where it makes more sense axis wise, also with this technique you can switch it up a few times when you're polishing so you can get the best placement for when everything is laid out. You will have to battle your axes at some point tho, that's a given but just find what could help you battle them the least.
On this video it works. But on your latest 2 or 3 videos the Onion Tools (and maybe other) links don't work in your bio. Wanted to get onion tools and use your links, that's how I found out. Is onion tools the best onion skin addon for blender in your opinion? In another video you are also recommending "Ghost frames"... What should I choose? :)
Oh thanks if you can point which videos it didn't work let me know so i can fix em. the onion skin tools is the one that works best for me, there is an other one that is cool and works super nice but only non linked characters is this one - - - - github.com/iBrushC/animextras You should definitely try it :)
@@lucianomunoz Awesome thanks for the recommendation. Will check it out. Regarding the links. I tested 3 of your latest video uploads. There it didn't work.
I have a very challenging question I have a moose that has both IP animation and RM that I bought online only thing is for unreal the RM does not works its there but none working this is what the seller told me ( Hello! Unfortunately, to work in UE4, you need to redo the animation of the root movement in the original Blender3D file There is no other way to fix it.) would you know how to fix? would be very helpful.
It depends on how complex the shot is, because basically everything that is on top of the root is going to always be counter animating against the root motion, so if its something as simple as a walkcycle in space (like my example) it's likely not necessary to keep the root in place but bear in mind that if your root is moving you'll always be counteranimating to the root.
Getting confused why to add root when you can choosing normal the arrows pointing the same direction as the root in pose mode. Blender 2.83.9. Anyhow thanks for the tutorial .
Hi there, thank you for all the great videos :) I have a question and I could not find the answer anywhere so maybe you have an idea : I'd like to be able to copy-paste the world position of one of my rig's controller. I used to have a script for this on Maya but I cannot find any dupes on Blender (and I don't know how to script) :/ For example : You have a walk cycle that is controlled by the root ctrl and you'd like to fix the sliding feet, copy the foot position you want to keep while on contact pose and paste it on the following frames to fix the issue. Hope I was clear enough! :) Thanks a lot and Happy New Year !
Yes people in the blender world don’t use much this workflow you describe because they don’t know it, i have a script to do this that i cant share as my friend is preparing it to sell it for a few bucks and i cant stress how much of a life saver it is, also i know sybren stuvel created an similar addon for that, probably is in his github. But in any case we’re working on getting this functionality out of the box in blender in the long run, but that will take a while longer. I’ll ask my friend if he’s ready to put it in gumroad and announce it soon with a video demo :) Hope that helps
@@lucianomunoz Awesome, thanks for such a quick answer. :) I used it ALL THE TIME, and I am definitely ready to buy it. I will be patiently waiting then, and I'll have a look at Sybren Stuvel's work too. Thank you for your help! Have a great day :)
So ive downloaded a Mixamo Char and used the Mixamo Converter to have a Root. But somehow there is no real Rootbone or i cant find it. In UE4 the Root motion works fine. But i wanted to change animations based on the Root, any idea how to find the Rootbone?
@@lucianomunoz Thanks man but you rly dont need to. I found it just strange that trough this mixamo root converter it seems to not add a rootbone but renames the whole rig as root. So i wanted to let the animation go in a different direction but there was no root bone i could change. Still starting with "Hips" in the Hirarchy. Also there is a Plane under the skeleton which is not attached or animated yet still follows the Character. Just weird things but you dont need to look at it. But if you want you can download a mixamo Char and for Blender the "Mixamo Converter" it adds rootbone to the mixamo Char and also the animations get converted. Works perfectly to get them in ue4 and use the rootmotion. Because the Mixamo Skelets have no rootbone. But i wanted to change a couple of those Animations but like i said i cant find the rootbone which is what im looking for to make a forwards dash into sideways dash. But thanks for the reply!
Hola, saludos de mexico vengo de maya y estoy empesando con animacion en blender y me surgió la duda de cual es la diferencia entre modo de rotacion quatermion y euler xyz, y en que casos deberia usar uno y en que casos otro?
basicamente el modo Quaternions no tiene problemas de gimbal lock, es siempre perfecto , pero tiene otros problemas, como no te sirve por ejemplo para una rotacion que hace vueltas en 360 ya que al llegar a 180 grados se flipea, entonces es muy util en cosas como los hombros y cabeza, pero no en la cadera o manos IK. Ya hare un video mas detallado al respecto
You Champ, once again with the goods :) do you know of the animSnap tool for maya? (it has saved my ass SOOooo many times) its kinda similar to what you have explained. thank you :') look forward to see what @FinEskimo makes :)
No I haven't heard of animsnap, but i use WorldBake from Morgan Loomis, and it does exactly what i did but with one click. what fin is doing is basically that but in blender :D
The Generate Rig button is faded out for me in Object mode, and I can't generate one, if certain features need to be turned on I'm not going to have any idea what that is?
@@lucianomunoz I was given the answer 2 months, only premade rigs use the Generate Rig Button, using a single bone doesn't use that. I've been using Inverse Kinematics now in Blender.
![[#3] Foot rigging in Blender using IK constraints](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/aAE_Az_51sk/mqdefault.jpg)
This is why I try to have my walk/run on a world axis first, and then rotate after, or check it as I go. Can't always do that, sometimes the ground is uneven. I am afraid to even imagine the trial and error you took to figure this out, but I am grateful you did it, and thanks for sharing. Wow!. Long live Lollipop Man!
Thank you!,i-am happy to be -of any help !
This is a great tutorial -- a tough topic handled very well. Too many tutorials cover the simple case and ignore everything else, which is why they don't ever talk about the root controller. Thanks!
thank you man!, It took me time to figure out to be able to explain something so complex in a more "general" or "generic" way thank you for appreciating it, I hope this helps also develop the tools to empower this workflows too!
This is becoming one of the most useful B3D channels out there, and this is not only useful for Blender users. This is universally useful for animation.
Happy to hear that :)
If only I saw this before finishing the whole rig. Everyone should see your video, nice way of explaining thanks a lot!
Glad it was helpful!
took me 30min to figure out what you did to your bones so the keyframes are based on its parent's space rather than its own. Mine didn't do that, so i really didn't get what was happening there.
Turns out, it's the "Local Location" checkbox in the relation panel, which makes sense, truth be told. I think this should be mentioned at some points, because the "Y is forward" advantage of this technique really depends on it
Thanks man, because of you I finally understand how Root Motion animations are supposed to work. I was having an issue with them in iClone 8 and now I know that it's a bug in their software that is screwing up the alignment on imported Root Motion animations where the character's turn.
You made this a while back but it still works and thank you
Glad it helps
Oh mate imagine if all that was a script and everytime your character zigged and zagged you could just re-alighn you root based of the handle that needed massageing.
That would be such a great script to have. Soooooooooo soooo handy.
I got one, in maya and in blender, but they havent been released yet.
Now i magine something better, you check a box in blender move the parent where you want, untick it, carry on.
What a small nuance and how much extra work you need to do if you don't know it. Thanks Luciano, very helpful video.
Yeah. This technique as you start using it in other situations, it becomes A dally life saver. Thank you Alex!
Gracias, me ha servido mucho, hice un ciclo de caminata, luego movi el root para hacer un bloqueo rapido, pero al querer refinar era un dolor de cabeza, hasta hacer el bake y quitar el root
esooo
This video is a goldmine of information omg. Thank you so much! A lot of tutorials for attack combos animate off the root, and I was really struggling to figure out how to get that root back under the character’s feet! Especially for game animation purposes where the root IS the collision capsule location. Now w/ this technique I can employ rootmotion, OR just zero out the root again once all the constraints are gone! I was afraid I’d have to remake everything bc I animated the cog and IK instead of the root, ahh what a relief knowing that’s not the case. Thanks again! :^]
Glad it was helpful!
Great tutorial. Gave me some great info on how to make animations I've created work, without modifying the animations. 💯
I'm glad it helps!
@@lucianomunoz definitely. 💪🏾
Hi Luciano
Another great video, great knowledge. For several days I have been trying in many ways to get the effect to make the character go in a specific direction after the cutscene
I tried to get this effect whole day so that after the end of the first phase of the cutscene the character would be in the center of the root, so that I could use to use the walk cycle, but at this stage of the animation it was very difficult. Your tutorial helped me a lot - thank you very much, I love your channel, so much great knowledge. You saved me another day trying to match my character to the center root bone
I have one problem - I tried to do it on the linked rig, but when I added contrain in the empty object and tried to select rig. Because the rig is linked, contraint in empty detected rig as a normal object and I can't select bone in empty object constrain.
I solved the problem - first I hide the collection with the linked rig, so as not to break anything there. In another collection I added the rig itself in append mode and set it to local options by clicking the chain icon in the tabs on the right. In this rig, I assigned a specific animation in the action editor (the same one we're working on). Thanks to this, to such a local rig I could already pin specific bones to contrains in empty objects. After bake action on empty object, the rest of the process is the same as yours.
I found an interesting way to match root to character position. The condition is that the torso bone (in rigify) must have zero rotations in the x and y axes. Then on the root bone I add contrain copy rotation and turn off the Z axis, next add copy location on all axes. Then bake action on the root bone even in one frame and we have a perfectly matched root bone.
Again thank you very much
Best regards
Michael
Oh thanks Michael!, I'm glad it was of help and thank you for sharing your own findings and workarounds!, I'll likely bump to some similar situations soon, so it's good i can come back and check out how you solved it!
Again thank you for being here and sharing your knowledge too!
Best,
Luciano.
This is very similar to the Richard Lico workflow where he uses the existing animation, to drive another one to create drag/overlap etc.
Think anything dragging behind hair, ears, coat tails, belts and so on.
I think you should do tutorial on how to do that in Blender. :D
Yeah totally, I know, i love his workflow, I've been wanting to do something like that without overstepping and seemingly copy what he does :)
Yooo Lu .. ur the best man .. i love ur videos
hey Ib you're the best!, thanks for being here !
Great vid Looch! Well explained! Definitely agree on Root transform orientation and Empty/Loc colors T__T
Thanks man!, lets make i thing right??
I recently watched a video about using the root bone for use in games using Maya as an example, where a person could freely move the root bone and the model remained in place, he did not make any additional manipulations. Perhaps this program has a function that blender does not have.
I think maya has a tool now to do that not many people know about it so people make it this way im explaining normally.
also with animbot it makes it pretty seasy too.
It seems to me that 3D animation is crying out for a new, more intuitive way of working. I have no idea what form that would take but I hope someone is working on it :-)
You are not wrong, check out what Raf Anzovin has in the works with www.justtodosomethingbad.com
Saved my ass yet again.
I'm glad!
@@lucianomunoz I've been messing with this in the past days, though, and I'm wondering -- would it not be more efficient now to use the anim layers addon (which I found on your channel -- thank you) to effect a root bone edit?
Not in this particular case and also I make most of my videos assuming people don't have the addons I tell them to have because not everyone can afford them or can buy them
@@lucianomunoz I am sorry to keep bugging you but I'm really curious -- why not in this case?
The layer method works pretty well but when I tried to effect a rotation, it started to get weird. So I haven't figured that out all the way yet.
One question, if i want a character moving through space, like a run cycle, is there is a better way then animating 'in place' then moving it through a motion path and which is also which doesn't take alot of time??
what you'd want to do is do what you described for the blocking, and then with this technique get rid of the animation of the root so you can keep all your character moving around in the world but with the root in one place aligned to what will suit you best.
@@lucianomunoz got it!
Im weird my first time making root motion animation and I went straight for a 4 legged dragon fml. I got it working but im trying to find out if they are better ways to do it. Good learning process though XD
totally!
Nice tutorial!
I also have this question about where to put the root when you animate a more complex scene, say a fight scene. The characters may move more in a random pattern, not along a straight line, and the camera angles and movements change frequently. In this more general case, is there a good way to place the root bone?
It will depend, you have to try to place it where it makes more sense axis wise, also with this technique you can switch it up a few times when you're polishing so you can get the best placement for when everything is laid out.
You will have to battle your axes at some point tho, that's a given but just find what could help you battle them the least.
On this video it works. But on your latest 2 or 3 videos the Onion Tools (and maybe other) links don't work in your bio. Wanted to get onion tools and use your links, that's how I found out.
Is onion tools the best onion skin addon for blender in your opinion? In another video you are also recommending "Ghost frames"... What should I choose? :)
Oh thanks if you can point which videos it didn't work let me know so i can fix em.
the onion skin tools is the one that works best for me, there is an other one that is cool and works super nice but only non linked characters is this one
- - - - github.com/iBrushC/animextras
You should definitely try it :)
@@lucianomunoz Awesome thanks for the recommendation. Will check it out.
Regarding the links. I tested 3 of your latest video uploads. There it didn't work.
Will chekc the links! thanks for letting me know!
I have a very challenging question I have a moose that has both IP animation and RM that I bought online only thing is for unreal the RM does not works its there but none working this is what the seller told me ( Hello! Unfortunately, to work in UE4, you need to redo the animation of the root movement in the original Blender3D file There is no other way to fix it.) would you know how to fix? would be very helpful.
oh and i thought it shouldbe that way xD i always worked it both axes to get one movement. is there a way to work without the ugly fix
Plan your shot, and put the root where it needs to be from the start. :)
Man I'm still lost with how to work my root motion.
im sorry i wasnt better. :(
Are there issues if you move the root where you want the character to be and make the character look like it’s moving along with it?
It depends on how complex the shot is, because basically everything that is on top of the root is going to always be counter animating against the root motion, so if its something as simple as a walkcycle in space (like my example) it's likely not necessary to keep the root in place but bear in mind that if your root is moving you'll always be counteranimating to the root.
Hi Thanks ! Is there already an Addon for that action?
There might I just dont know for sure, I havent checked.
cant see subtitles in this video, may you enable them?
I'm sure I did, I even put some custom ones, let me see if there is something i can do to fix it!
Getting confused why to add root when you can choosing normal the arrows pointing the same direction as the root in pose mode. Blender 2.83.9. Anyhow thanks for the tutorial .
Maybe I missed that?, I'm pretty sure i tried, but I could be wrong.
Hi there, thank you for all the great videos :)
I have a question and I could not find the answer anywhere so maybe you have an idea :
I'd like to be able to copy-paste the world position of one of my rig's controller. I used to have a script for this on Maya but I cannot find any dupes on Blender (and I don't know how to script) :/
For example : You have a walk cycle that is controlled by the root ctrl and you'd like to fix the sliding feet, copy the foot position you want to keep while on contact pose and paste it on the following frames to fix the issue.
Hope I was clear enough! :)
Thanks a lot and Happy New Year !
Yes people in the blender world don’t use much this workflow you describe because they don’t know it, i have a script to do this that i cant share as my friend is preparing it to sell it for a few bucks and i cant stress how much of a life saver it is, also i know sybren stuvel created an similar addon for that, probably is in his github. But in any case we’re working on getting this functionality out of the box in blender in the long run, but that will take a while longer. I’ll ask my friend if he’s ready to put it in gumroad and announce it soon with a video demo :)
Hope that helps
@@lucianomunoz Awesome, thanks for such a quick answer. :)
I used it ALL THE TIME, and I am definitely ready to buy it.
I will be patiently waiting then, and I'll have a look at Sybren Stuvel's work too.
Thank you for your help! Have a great day :)
11:34 You can assign a custom image to each Empty.
Yes you can !
So ive downloaded a Mixamo Char and used the Mixamo Converter to have a Root. But somehow there is no real Rootbone or i cant find it. In UE4 the Root motion works fine. But i wanted to change animations based on the Root, any idea how to find the Rootbone?
Im sorry , i have never used mixamo, ill look into it when i can.
@@lucianomunoz Thanks man but you rly dont need to. I found it just strange that trough this mixamo root converter it seems to not add a rootbone but renames the whole rig as root. So i wanted to let the animation go in a different direction but there was no root bone i could change. Still starting with "Hips" in the Hirarchy. Also there is a Plane under the skeleton which is not attached or animated yet still follows the Character. Just weird things but you dont need to look at it. But if you want you can download a mixamo Char and for Blender the "Mixamo Converter" it adds rootbone to the mixamo Char and also the animations get converted. Works perfectly to get them in ue4 and use the rootmotion. Because the Mixamo Skelets have no rootbone. But i wanted to change a couple of those Animations but like i said i cant find the rootbone which is what im looking for to make a forwards dash into sideways dash. But thanks for the reply!
Sir can you generate rig of my character please please please please please please
I can but that has a cost, we can discuss it via email, find it in the about page or on my website.
Can you generate rig in free??
@@krsaurabhiitg You can do it with rigify no problem
Hola, saludos de mexico vengo de maya y estoy empesando con animacion en blender y me surgió la duda de cual es la diferencia entre modo de rotacion quatermion y euler xyz, y en que casos deberia usar uno y en que casos otro?
Increibles tutoriales de rigify por cierto n_n
basicamente el modo Quaternions no tiene problemas de gimbal lock, es siempre perfecto , pero tiene otros problemas, como no te sirve por ejemplo para una rotacion que hace vueltas en 360 ya que al llegar a 180 grados se flipea, entonces es muy util en cosas como los hombros y cabeza, pero no en la cadera o manos IK. Ya hare un video mas detallado al respecto
You Champ, once again with the goods :)
do you know of the animSnap tool for maya? (it has saved my ass SOOooo many times) its kinda similar to what you have explained. thank you :')
look forward to see what @FinEskimo makes :)
No I haven't heard of animsnap, but i use WorldBake from Morgan Loomis, and it does exactly what i did but with one click.
what fin is doing is basically that but in blender :D
@@lucianomunoz awesome Fin, look forward to it
The Generate Rig button is faded out for me in Object mode, and I can't generate one, if certain features need to be turned on I'm not going to have any idea what that is?
something is wrong
@@lucianomunoz I was given the answer 2 months, only premade rigs use the Generate Rig Button, using a single bone doesn't use that.
I've been using Inverse Kinematics now in Blender.
look at you, fancy inverse kinematics!,
Bro hello. Do you have discord or skype or something thank you.
I only do paid consulting go into my gunroad and buy “fresh eyes” that should be good if you want some one on one :)
first comment
and like!
You are an Expert Mam!
@@lucianomunoz yup, thanks, but not "Mam" but "Man" :)))