With the release of Godot 4 all the way back in March 2023 there were some important features that didn’t make the cut. Perhaps foremost among those features impacted animators with the removal of Inverse Kinematics (IK). With the recent release of Godot 4.6 beta IK has returned, better than ever.
The road to IK returning to Godot builds upon several previous features in earlier Godot 4.x releases. In Godot 4.4 SkeletonModifier3D was added (along with LookAtModifier3D and RetargetModifier3D). In Godot 4.5 SpringBoneSimulator3D and BoneConstraint3D (and child classes AimModifier3D, ConvertTransformModifier3D and CopyTransformModifier3D) were added.
This leads us to the just released Godot 4.6 beta and Inverse Kinematics returns with the addition of IKModifier3D and it’s 7 different child classes – TwoBoneIK3D, ChainIK3D, SplineIK3D, IterateIK3D, FABRIK3D, CCDIK3D and JacobianIK3D. You can get a huge amount of details about these new additions and the journey to this point in this blog post.
Key Links
Godot 4.6 Beta 1 Release (Required for IK)
Inverse Kinematics Return to Godot 4.6 Blog Post
You can learn more about Inverse Kinematics in Godot, including a quick primer in Blender explaining just what exactly Inverse Kinematics (IK) and Forward Kinematics (FK) even are in the video below.