Posing is very important in the animation
process. We move our characters to their key positions
to better plan our animation. Traditionally, the tools we use for the task
are the Transform Bone and Manipulate Bones. Now let me introduce my new script MR Pose
Tool which combines the functionality of both those tools. Plus, it adds the functionality of the MR
Move Targeted Joints tool, and even more! Let me show you the advantages the tool provides,
depending on the situation. First situation. You need to change the position
of the hand without changing the position of the elbow. If you’re using the Transform Bone tool,
you need to control the scale of the bone separately from its rotation, which makes
the process more complicated. MR Pose allows you to control those two parameters
at once, so you just take the hand and place it wherever you want. If you only need to scale, hold down the Shift
key. Situation 2 You need to change the position
of the elbow without changing the hand’s position. With the Transform Bone tool you need to change
the scale and rotation of two bones separately, trying to end up in the same position where
the hand was before. And then you also need to adjust the rotation
of the bone. MR Pose allows you to just place the elbow
wherever you need. If you press and hold the Alt key, the rotation
of the hand will adjust automatically. And if you also hold down the Shift key, the elbow position will change preserving the proportions of the bones. Situation 3 You need to change the position
of the shoulder without changing the elbow’s position. With the Transform Bone tool you need to move
the shoulder, then change the scale and rotation of the bones trying to place the elbow into
the same position as it was before. MR Pose allows you to press and hold the Alt
key and move the shoulder wherever you need. I hope you get the idea. You can control the shoulder, elbow, and hand
independently from each other, and concentrate more on the pose itself instead of guessing
the correct combination of transform, rotation, and scale. In other words, you can minimize the routine
and spend more effort on creativity. Situation 4 You need to move the hand so
the entire arm would stretch. If you use the Transform Bone, you need to
guess the shoulder rotation, then scale two bones. MR Pose allows you to easily achieve that
when you press down the Shift key. Without the Shift key it will work the same
as the Manipulate Bones tool. By the way, in any of those modes the Alt
key will automatically adjust the angle of the child bones, or a single bone in this
case. Situation 5 You need to change the leg’s
target position without changing the position of the knee. I guess you get the difference already. You can also move the knee and the target
together. Situation 6 You’re polishing your animation
and you need to transform the bones only in the current frame, without affecting the others. Using only the basic tools, every time you
do that you need to select the bones and create keyframes in the adjacent frames. MR Pose has this option of Smart Bake. When it’s turned on, the script will automatically
bake the keyframes in the affected channels, so you can concentrate on the spacing itself
and don’t think about ruining anything in the adjacent frames. Situation 7 You turned on the Show Path
option but your animation has a lot of keyframes and the path is so complicated that it’s
impossible to navigate. MR Pose has the Range option for the Show
Path, so you would see not the entire path at once but rather a fragment of it, within the range of frames based on the current one, which is much easier to deal with. By the way, if you find it hard to select
a particular handle of the bone, hold down the Ctrl key, it will show the active handles. And if you double click the handle, it will
reset its parameter. For the script to detect limbs, all you need to do is enable the option of ignoring the inverse kinematics on the additional bones. I hope you’re gonna like the script, let
me know in the comments below!
