Since this topic poped up:
http://forums.epicgames.com/threads/980413-Dynamic-Animation-Systems
I think it would be nice to have some build in default IK solution. Even some basic one.
It would allow to cut cost of creating animations. I.e we don’t need to create separate animations for picking objects, walking on stairs, walking on slopes, for stretching legs to bit different locations etc. IK system build in engine can take care for all of it, using deformation and object attractors that will attract certain bones to object.
Attractors should be of course placeable in any object either using blueprint, code, or even build in into actor as flag that can be checked.
Increased quality for small team. Small team usually can’t afford creating various different animations for different cases, so we end up with few animations and unnatural behaviour for humanoid characters, teleporting objects or other “tricks” that are simply product of “we don’t have time for this”.
I know there are already 3rd party IK solutions, like HumanIK or IKinema, but they are not in Rocket (yet), and we don’t know if even integrating them into Rocket on our own would be possible.
Last reason. Competition have build in IK by default. It’s nothing advanced beyond what I have wrote in first paragraph.