I have not been able to keep the legs (or to be more precise , feet ) firm in their place when I want to do idle animation. I usually put an IK connected to the upper leg and shin, but still the feet move a bit. For what I mean look at this animation show-cased here:
Not to shame the guy who did it, but I just wanted to show a quick sample (I don`t have access to my files right now). Can someone please tell me a good way of making the feet stick in their place for idle animations?
.... just don't key the leg bones or ik?
BinaryCats wrote.... just don't key the leg bones or ik?
Well I want some bending on the legs, leaving them totally static does not look good, without moving the feet.
Ooooh, that's a toughy if you have the feet parented to the shin bones.
I don't typically use IK that often so someone else may know a better work around, but off the top of my head I'd say maybe create a second pair of feet that aren't parented to the shins(parented to a static bone preferably). You'd make those extra feet invisible when handling any other animations but for the idle ones(or anytime you want your feet completely static) you can make them visible and the shin parented feet invisible.
I hope someone more knowledgable comes along, this feels kinda cludgey to me.
What I usually do is either A) use IK-constraints on the legs, and then simply move the torso, or B) use onion skin to watch where the feet were previously, and then manually match them up 
Did something like that in my recent video, though it did not call for it to be as precise as is usually the case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywQPPRML7o8 (the leg part is about 34 minutes in) Setting the feet to not follow the parent bones' angles also often helps a lot (in either case, A or B) ^^
SimonMilfred wroteWhat I usually do is either A) use IK-constraints on the legs, and then simply move the torso, or B) use onion skin to watch where the feet were previously, and then manually match them up
Thanks!
A) this is what I am doing, upper leg and shin are IK`ed together but still there is slight movement in the feet.
B) Damn, this is actually a pretty good idea, I totally forgot about the onion skinning!
C) the last thing you suggested, you mean turn of the rotation inheritance right? If so that works too but the is that key-able? because probably they need to inherit rotation in other animation types...
aiat_gamer wrote
Well, I guess A works best together with C..
Yes, rotation inheritance - but no, I do not think it is keyable, so you would then need to key the feet in the other animations, OR have two interchangeable sets of feet depending on the animation.
I assume the movement you get on the foot is because the foot's parent bones rotate and the foot inherits rotation. Besides disabling inherit rotation or having 2 sets of feet, you can create a single bone IK constraint for the foot. This way when the parent rotates, the foot doesn't (actually it does, but the foot IK adjusts its local rotation to continue to point toward the target, resulting in the foot's word rotation remaining the same). You can then key the foot IK mix to zero to turn this off.
