Foot Contact & Ground

Use Preserve Foot Contact to treat supporting feet as planted while you pose. Contact is soft, so a foot can still slide or lift slightly as the rest of the body adjusts.

The Foot Contact panel

Preserve Foot Contact, the ground buttons, and the per-foot contact rows.

The Short Version

1. Fit the ground

   Enable Preserve Foot Contact, then press Fit Ground. The ground plane aligns to the lowest foot and the contact states update.

2. Check the support foot

   Confirm that the supporting foot reads Contact. Use the manual Contact or Release buttons when needed.

3. Pose normally

   Drag the upper body around. AutoPose considers the supporting foot planted, but it can still move slightly as the rest of the pose adapts.

Foot contact while posing

Soft foot-contact guidance applied while the torso is pulled away.

The Controls

Control	What it does
Preserve Foot Contact	Uses touching feet as soft support constraints unless their ankle or toe is moved
Fit Ground	Moves the ground plane to the lowest foot and updates which feet are in contact
Adjust Ground	Shows a movable plane you drag by its blue Z axis, then press Finish Adjust
Auto Contact	Re-evaluates a foot’s contact automatically when you finish dragging it

Setting The Ground

You can set the ground plane in three ways.

Fit Ground

Moves the plane under the character’s lowest foot and updates which feet are in contact.

Adjust Ground

Shows the plane in the viewport. Drag its blue Z axis to set the height, then press Finish Adjust.

Ground Height

Enter the plane’s world-space height directly under Ground Settings. Use this when you already know the exact value.

Adjusting the ground

Adjust Ground positioning the plane, followed by Ground Height, Contact Tolerance, and Show Ground Plane.

Which Foot Is In Contact

With Preserve Foot Contact on, the panel shows a row for each foot with its current state.

State	Means
Contact	This foot contributes ground support while you pose
Released	This foot does not contribute ground support

If the panel shows Free

Free means the foot was not close enough to the ground to count as contact when AutoPose checked it. It is not a separate posing mode: like Released, it contributes no ground support. The difference is internal bookkeeping. Released records an explicit release or a foot that was lifted during a drag. Press Contact to plant either one.

Each row has Contact and Release buttons that override the state directly. Those buttons always work: they are not restricted by how far the foot happens to be from the plane, so you can plant a foot that is slightly off the ground or release one that is standing on it.

Changing a contact state does not re-solve the pose. The character stays exactly as it is; only what happens on the next drag changes.

Auto Contact

Auto Contact is available whenever Preserve Foot Contact is on. With it enabled, AutoPose re-evaluates a foot when you finish dragging its ankle or toe: if it is close enough to the plane, it becomes planted; if you lift it away, it becomes released.

Your manual Contact and Release choices still work with Auto Contact on. It handles the obvious cases so you do not have to think about them, and gets out of the way when you make a decision explicitly.

Leave it off when you want full manual control over which foot is carrying weight, which is common for held or unstable poses.

Ground Settings

Expand Ground Settings for the finer controls. Most poses never need them.

Ground Settings

Ground Height, Contact Tolerance, and Show Ground Plane.

Setting	What it controls
Ground Height	The world-space height of the plane. Type an exact value instead of dragging it
Contact Tolerance	How close a foot has to be to the plane to count as touching. Scaled to the character’s size
Show Ground Plane	Whether the plane is drawn during a session

About Contact Tolerance

The default suits most characters. Raise it if a foot that looks planted is not reported as Contact; lower it if a clearly lifted foot keeps being marked as Contact. Because it is scaled to the character, a small character and a giant do not need different numbers.

Practical Notes

• Dragging a foot releases its contact. Contact is preserved unless you move that foot’s ankle or toe. This lets you reposition the foot without ground support pulling it back.
• Turning contact on fits the plane for you. Enabling Preserve Foot Contact confirms the plane against the feet as they currently stand, so you do not have to remember to press Fit Ground first.
• Contact changes apply on the next drag. Changing a foot’s contact state does not move the current pose.

Contact is soft

A foot in Contact is considered planted, but it is not locked. Slight sliding or lifting can happen as AutoPose balances the foot with the rest of the pose and other active constraints. If the movement is larger than expected, check that Preserve Foot Contact is on, the foot reads Contact, and the ground plane is at the expected height.

Next

• Poses & Animation to save what you have built.
• Posing With Constraints for the rest of the posing toolkit.