What is Wrong with HIK in Maya? Smart Layer Tutorial. New Tips!
https://borovikmotion.gumroad.com/l/s...
Other tutorials: • Smart Layer Tutorials
Human IK (HIK) rig sometimes can behave quite weirdly in Maya. In this tutorial, we'll review the most common issues with the HIK evaluation when trying to apply adjustment blending via Smart Layer. I'll show several interesting examples, like how to make an animation in place, how to adjust stop animations, how to rotate the character via the transformation algorithm, how to adjust dance animation, animation adjustment by spline in simple cases, and a complex example with a character climbing the wall. I believe this knowledge should be extremely helpful if you'd like to master character animation for games, movies, cinematic, cgi, etc.
Smart Layer is a script for Autodesk Maya that allows you to adjust animation in a very easy and quick way.
Usually, we adjust animation with animation layers. But with this approach, each change results in a ton of routine work, controlling the poses, managing keys and timings to avoid issues like feet sliding, wobbliness, etc.
Smart Layer eliminates these issues, and work that before could take hours to do - now can be done in seconds. That makes it perfect for tasks like mocap cleanup, game animation, cinematics/movies layouts.
Main applications:
proportionally "shift" the animation, and avoid feet sliding
proportionally rotate the animation, and avoid feet sliding
make animation follow a spline, proportionally, without feet sliding
create variations of the same animation, but with different poses (like the same character stop animation can end with 10 different idles)
create strafe animations from movement-forward
create animations for different directions, using only forward animation (character starts, attacks, abilities, etc.)
create movement-in-circle animations from movement-forward
adjust individual controls and keep the original animation flow
The script doesn't care about the rig type, would it be a biped or quadruped, or spider, or centipede, or any other custom creature, it works for everything.
How it works:
1) add animation controls to the animation layer
2) in layer, create keyframes with necessary adjustments, and run the script
3) the script will do the math, and create a new animation layer, where your adjustments will be applied in a "proportionate" way, preserving the original animation's flow, but with a new poses.
The script is in late beta, bugs and feature requests here:
https://trello.com/b/doArYTKr/smart-l...
Tested in Maya:
2020.4, 2022.5, 2023.3, 2024.2, 2025 (Windows 10);
2022.5, 2023.3, 2024.2, 2025 (Mac OS Monterey 12.4)
Tested on rigs: Advanced Skeleton, mGear, Azri, Pickle Rig*, HIK**, and others.
*Pickle Rig is a custom rig for Maya, made in a simple, "traditional" way, using regular transforms and standard components.
**HIK requires to remove unused controls from layer
***When processing a large number of controls - use "Run Simulation" option (parallel evaluation works faster)
SCRIPT REQUIRES CONNECTION TO THE INTERNET TO GO THROUGH ACTIVATION. CHECK IF YOUR MAYA IS ABLE TO DO SO, can be done via script:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qk4V...
00:00 intro
00:10 understanding the problem
02:20 first way to fix it
03:15 second way
04:16 custom script
05:12 alternative - use "run simulation" checkbox
06:18 stop animation
08:10 transformation
10:08 the turn on spot
11:56 spline adjustment
15:10 complex example with the vertical climb
24:38 summary