Creating the IK chains

What are IK chains? Put simply, an IK chain is like any other chain, such as a bicycle chain, where each link in the chain has a relationship with the next. This applies to limbs in a body where each bone makes up a link in a chain. So, each limb, such as the shoulder down to the hand, makes up one IK chain.

All an IK Rig does is simplify each rig into the following five IK chains:

• Spine to head
• Left shoulder/clavicle to left hand
• Right shoulder/clavicle to right hand
• Left thigh to left foot
• Right thigh to right foot

Note

Ensure that you create each chain in the order that I have written them here and that the order applies to both the source and target skeletons.

To do this, let’s take a closer look at the IK Retargeting tab. In Figure 4.15, knowing that I just need five IK chains, I clicked on the +Add New Chain button five times:

Figure 4.15: IK Retargeting tab for the source

By default...