I've been having serious trouble getting proper tracking of arms for motions when they are relatively static and held at a position on either side of the torso with bent elbows (think of someone walking with a gun or simply standing and talking). DMC seems to do much better when the arms are constantly in motion relative to the rest of the body but tends to incorrectly rotate them inwards so that the hands are up against the torso once there isn't a lot of movement. If I pause the track and manually fix the arm rotation it always pops back to the correct placement once I hit Refit Pose. The only way I can sometimes get around this is to NOT use Refit Pose and simply start tracking backwards after manual adjustment. However, it usually goes wrong again after a few frames.

I've attached a screenshot showing the issue. If anyone has any suggestions on how to prevent/reduce this problem it would be very helpful.

Thanks,
Mitch

Try rotating the shoulder using FK mode and then reposition the forearm (FK on the elbow or switch back to IK, whatever works best for you.) Choose Copy Pose and then click Refit Pose. If Refit Pose doesn't improve the match, paste the copied pose and tweak manually if necessary. Copy the tweaked pose as a 'backup' and try tracking backwards from this point, up to around where the last preceding good frame is. This should work.

Next, go the the last good frame, step ahead one frame, paste the copied pose and click Refit Pose. Try to continue tracking forward from here.

At this point it's a good idea to tweak the Trajectory Filtering to smooth any bumps. Just slide it to another value and slide it back.

I use the above method (or a variation of it) when I run into a difficult spot but, from what I can tell, simply adjusting the shoulder and using Refit Pose might solve your problem.

Hope this helps.

G.

_________________
Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | My Demo Reels (2013,) (2015,) (2017,) and (2019)

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

BTW, I noticed the head is going crazy in your screen cap. For me, this feature seems to have trouble if I turn my head too far in any direction. When this happens, I've been finding that it's better to leave head tracking off for the trouble frames, and then turn it back on for frame ranges where it's behaving more predictably. Remember to tweak Trajectory Filtering after you do this.

(I'm sure this new feature will continue to improve, probably when Z rotation is added.)

G.

_________________
Greenlaw
Artist/Partner - Little Green Dog | My Demo Reels (2013,) (2015,) (2017,) and (2019)

Watch a one minute excerpt on Vimeo now!

Greenlaw,

Thanks for your informative reply and advice! I will try out these tips over the weekend. About the head...yeah that is sometime else I ran into just before making the screenshot and it only happened once. What occurred is the head track looked fine, but the arm was messed up. I went to the point in the track where the arm was off, fixed, refit pose and started tracking backwards. For some reason the head immediately popped into the contorted rotation you see in the image. I've not seen this before or since so it might just be a software glitch. Will certainly keep an eye out in case it happens again in order to report repeatable steps to Ipisoft.

Cheers,
Mitch