Posing & IK

Posing in the Character tool works two ways: forward kinematics (rotate individual bones with the gizmo or the inspector fields) and inverse kinematics (drag a hand, foot, or control handle and let the solver work out the bone rotations). Everything writes into the rig's bone quaternions, so a pose is just the rig's current state — which you then keyframe (see keyframes & timeline). This article covers the posing controls; it assumes you know the layout.

Forward kinematics: rotate a bone#

Select a bone (click it in the Bone Hierarchy or in the viewport) and a transform gizmo attaches to it. The gizmo works in local space:

• R — rotate mode (the default for every bone)
• T — translate mode, enabled only for Hips, the root, which is how you author root motion

The inspector shows the selection's rotation as Euler XYZ degrees in editable fields; for Hips it also shows an X/Y/Z position box. Typing into a field poses the bone exactly like dragging the gizmo. Each gizmo drag is one undo step.

Two per-bone buttons sit alongside the fields: Reset returns just the selected bone to its rest (bind) rotation — and, for Hips, its rest position — and keys it; Key bone records the current bone at the playhead.

Inverse kinematics: reach with hands and feet#

Turn on IK (the inspector's IK toggle) to reveal four draggable reach handles — L Hand, R Hand, L Foot, R Foot. Drag one and the upper and lower limb rotate together so the hand or foot reaches the handle. Reach is limited so the limb does not hyperextend. Hand chains are drawn cyan and foot chains orange.

A shortcut for grabbing a handle: with IK on, double-click a hand or foot joint in the viewport to select its IK target directly.

IK handles are translate-only, and a whole drag is a single undo step.

Pole targets, look-at, and torso#

Beyond the four reach handles, the editor exposes a full control-rig layer of extra handles (also shown while IK is on, except fingers, which have their own toggle):

• Elbows and knees — direction handles. The hand or foot stays pinned while the middle joint swivels toward the handle, so you can change the bend direction without moving the hand or foot.
• Head — a look-at handle. The neck and head share the aim, clamped so it can't over-rotate.
• Chest — a torso-lean handle. The three spine bones rotate so the chest points toward the handle, clamped.
• Hips — a pelvis handle that translates the root. With full-body IK on, planted feet stay pinned so the legs bend instead of dragging.
• Fingertips — one handle per finger (ten total), enabled by a separate Fingers toggle. Dragging a fingertip curls its finger joints naturally toward the handle.

Full-body IK and balance#

Enable Full-body IK to change what a hand or foot drag does: instead of moving just that limb, the hips and spine assist the reach, planted feet stay in place, and every affected bone is keyed. A companion Balance toggle (available only while full-body IK is on) adds an automatic counterpose so the character stays plausibly balanced as you move a handle.

The inspector hint under the selection updates to tell you which mode is active — "the chain solves" for plain IK versus "the whole body solves (hips/spine assist, feet stay planted)" for full-body.

Mirror left to right#

Two mirror buttons copy a pose across the body's centerline by reflecting bone rotations: L → R copies the left side onto the right, R → L does the reverse. The mirrored bones are keyed at the playhead as one undo step. This is the fast way to make a symmetric pose or to flip a hand-authored side.

Preset poses and rest#

The inspector ships four built-in preset poses you can apply in one click:

• A-Pose
• Relaxed
• Reach Up
• Sitting

Applying a preset poses the whole skeleton and keys it at the playhead. Rest pose (the reset-to-rest control) returns every bone to the bind pose and keys the whole body as one undo step.

Pack and lifetime customers can also save their own named pose presets — capture the current rig pose, then reload, rename, export, or import it later. Saved presets are a customer perk; the four built-in presets above are always available.

The Studio has two kinds of preset, and the one "saved presets" perk covers both. Pose presets are the ones on this page: a rig pose, saved from the Pose tab. Appearance presets are a different thing entirely — a character's look, saved from the Char tab and covered in the Character Creator. Applying a pose preset never changes how a character looks, and applying an appearance preset never moves a bone.

Where to go next#

• Keyframes, dope sheet & curves — turn poses into animation.
• Character overview & layout — the panels and selection model.