Creating an IK controller and testing the whole rig

Before we set up the IK controls, we need to get a few bits of information from our arm skeleton. This is going to be used later to set up the orientation of our IK control.

Getting bone orientations of our arm bones

In the Rig Hierarchy window, right-click on the L_Arm_Lower bone and select Control Bone Transform, as shown in Figure 15.31:

Figure 15.31 – Control Bone Transform

This will display the local transform of the bone. Make sure it's set to Local Space and select Move, as shown in Figure 15.32:

Figure 15.32 – Axes primary and secondary

Notice that the Z axis (blue Z arrow) is pointing directly down the arm toward the hand. Note this direction down as +Z (if the blue Z-axis arrow were pointing in the opposite direction but along the same axis to the hand, it would have been -Z).

This +Z value is what we will use later as the primary IK axis. Now...