IKtools Guide

This is not actually a tutorial its more like suggestions in case you run into errors, I think Im the only here that uses IKtools(okay some ppl used it too, but I use it allways :D) so I thought that I could share some knowledge about it.

Heres the link to the script, there are two vertions actually 1.5a and 2.0 beta, Ive tested and 1.5a gives a more acurate animation, although 2.0 will save a few kb in size, I recomend 1.5a, if the link doesnt work, the 1.5a script is attached in page 3 of the thread too:

http://wc3campaigns.net/showthread.php?t=82515


So Ill divide it in 3 parts, Facts(correct me if Im wrong here pls): things that you should consider before using Inverse kinematics, Donts things you shoulnd do, and Sugestions that covers most of the errors you could get and some sugestions.

Here it goes:

FACTS:
-Unless you are an expert animator(or have inmence talent) Inverse Kinematics looks way better and natural than Forward Kinematics
-You will ALLWAYS have to do some tweaking to the baked bones after baking, mainly adding keys at the begining and end of each animation, and adding keys when necesary because some animations are fast,like attacks, and the script just captures anims every 5 frames(actually u can use less or more frames) so some detail or timing can be lost.
-Sometimes some parts of the baked bones like the legs, at least the way I use them, become a litle shaky, you wont notice it in game anyway.
-After baking the controler type of the baked bones is correct for arttools so you wont have to worry about it.
-If you know how, and you have some time to make the rig, dont use biped :)
-If you dont want to use Inverse kinematics(IK) then use maxbones, they are way better than using any mesh as bones.
-If you are using biped, mixing maxbones(with IK) with biped gives better results, use the maxbones for the legs, works great, you allmost dont have to move the leg bones!


DONTS:
-Do not use 1 frame(at the options of the script) when you have long complex animations, itll lagg like hell to complete baking, I use the recomended 5 frames per second.
-Do not set the time configuration in max to a very high Frames Per Second(FPS) if you do the script will lagg a lot, I use 30fps.
-Dont bake bones or meshes with the prefix FK at their names.
-Im not 100% sure if this aplies if you use only maxbones but if you mix them with biped and the maxbones uses IK, DO NOT clone those maxbones(like cloning a leg made out of maxbones to save time) because the script will bake it wrong(the clone), youll have to make that part from scratch again(ie make that another leg from scratch)

SUGGESTIONS:
-If you use biped to do the animations then most likelly you will have to delete the root bone, bip01 , just compare the baked animations and the original and you will see that without that bip01 bone the anims looks the same.
-If you get errors its most likelly that you have meshes or bones that have duplicaded names, you only can bake objects with unique names but I sugest you dont use the prefix FK on any name especially if its an already baked biped bone.
-If you want to use biped+maxbones you will need to bake 2 times: one for the biped only, unataching the maxbones, then if its okay youll attach the maxbones to the baked objects then rename all the baked objects to something thats not FK<nameoftheobject>(you can delete the first "F" for example using the max rename function),but if you have unused baked biped bones try not to delete them, sometimes it wont bake again if the baked biped is not complete(happened to me only once), and bake it again, of course only if the maxbones use Inverse Kinematics.
-If you want to use biped+maxbones and the bones dont use IK, IKCHAINS, then just unattach the bones from the biped, bake only the biped and then just attach the bones to the biped, arttools can handle maxbones.
-You can attach the mesh to the original bones, so that after baking you wont have to do it, and youll see what are you actually doing with the model(you notice it better), Im telling this because I used to work only with bones :s lol
-Dont try to clean the frames between animations, the script will create frames where you dont need it like between a walk and stand animation, because the exporter will only export the animation that are inside the boundaries of the notes you made at the dope sheet.
-After baking dont forget to verify if all the bones has starting keys at frame 0.
-If you used maxbones with IK delete the tip of the bones after baking, sometimes they have keys, meaning that if you export the file will get bigger.
-After baking there can be bones that dont need keys at all, for example I never animate the neck but it allways have keys after baking, so remember to delete all those extra keys to reduce the file size
-If sometimes you cant get the exporter to bake the bones correctly then you can try manually relinking the baked bones to each other, sometimes it works some it doesnt, worked once for me but I needed to do heavy tweaking to the animations at the end so only do this if you cant fix the problem with the other sugestions

At the end all can be baked with some work, at least for me :D

I'll wait for an art moderator to approve this.

so noone finds this useful?? maybe noone tryed iktools yet, well its worth the effort, if I do a video tutorial about animating with IK for war3 anyone would dl it?? itll be something around 50 mb I think

I would. In a heartbeat.

I think the tutorial could be cleaned a bit, but it is useful. Approved.

I used IK which I found usful for other things. never really bothered to mess with them on warcraft 3 tho. there espicly good for mimicing ragdoll effects such as a guy flying back from a close range shotgun or a marine getting blown upwards by a landmine.

Ehm, I think that the link to the VA tools, is broken. Maybe you should upload the tools to your tutorial.