Spinemovement on smartbones of Turn Characters, Yes or No ?

[martin_mrt]

A Question to the Swarmexperience:
When creating characters that turn around (at least 180°) do you move your spine bones in the smartaction to get closer to a natural body posture or do you strictly keep your spine straight and unrotated to avoid hirarchy conflicts etc. later when animating in the Mainline?

[Greenlaw]

For me, it's whatever works. Keeping the bones in a 'natural' position isn't particularly meaningful or useful if it doesn't deform the artwork how I want it to.

It may also depend on the design and how I intend to animate the character. For example, in the turnaround, am I making the animation smooth and continuous, or am I switching to different artwork, or perhaps a different sub-rig (via Vitruvian Bones.)

I might also consider IK behavior. I always bend a joint slightly at frame zero so the IK will favor a direction. This can be changed during animation when necessary.