wk_PowerPin

When animating characters with WalkCycles and let the characters walk around curves, it's very likely the feet slide more or less during turning.

wk_PowerPin automates the process of pinning down feet when they reach local Z=0 (or whatever axis you define as "up").

Even if you let your character walk up a hill, as long as you move the character's global controller, the feet will still have a local zero position during feet-down.

Tested with Blender 5.1!

Just pick the character's armature as reference and the feet as targets. set start and end frame, back step and hit "Bake".

In Non-Destructive mode, PowerPin will key all pinning-animation in a NLA strip and adds it in the NLA editor. It's so easy to do changes in your walk animation: Just delete the new NLA strip, edit your animation, bake the feet again.

You pick a Reference (usually the armature or a control object that defines the local up axis) and one or more Target feet/bones. wk_PowerPin finds ground-contact segments (local axis near the Ground Value within Tolerance), creates a Combine overlay action, and pins the foot across each segment. Outside contact frames, nothing is keyed.

Automatically pins feet in global position during ground contact (e.g. z=0)

Set tolerance, in case your walk cycle animation doesn't have precise flat ground-keys

Set start and end frame for frame range to bake

Trim the baked segments: If your walk cycle animation has keys close to the ground frames, the pinned animation might cause jumps from pinned range back to original animation. Stealing a frame or two might end up in smoother transitions.

Chose between non-distructive mode (adding a NLA strip) or destructive mode (baking the pinning directly into your f-curves).

• Select your Reference (armature) and Targets (feet).
• Pick Axis, set Ground Value (0.0 for most rigs), adjust Tolerance if needed.
• Define Frame Range and Bake Step.
• If you see pops at contact boundaries, set Trim Contact Range (e.g., Start=1, End=1).
• Click Bake. Base action is pushed to NLA if needed; a Combine overlay is created and pinned per contact.

• In Blender go to Edit > Preferences > Add-ons
• Click Install, then choose the wk_powerpin_1.0.0.zip file
• Enable wk_PowerPin in the list
• Access it from the Sidebar (N) > WK Tools

Menu Items

• Reference
  The object that defines the local space and up axis (typically the armature). Contact segments are measured in this space.

• Axis
  Local up-axis used for contact detection (e.g., Z).

• Ground Value
  Local value that counts as “on the ground”. Default 0.0.

• Tolerance
  Allowed deviation from Ground Value for detection. Default 0.001.
  Increase value if keys are not precisely on a flat curve.

• Targets
  One or more bones/objects to pin (e.g., foot.L, foot.R). Each target is processed independently.

• Frame Range
  Start/End frames to bake.

• Bake Step
  Key spacing inside detected contact segments (detection itself still scans per frame). Default = 1.

• Trim Contact Range
  Shorten pinned segments to soften transitions if the source walk has keys right at the boundary or slides on entry/exit.

  Start: drop N frames at the beginning of each contact segment. End: drop N frames at the end of each contact segment. Note: trimming may slightly increase sliding within the trimmed tails/heads but reduces visible pops.

• Mode
  Non-Destructive: Creates a new overlay action (Combine, Extrapolation Nothing). Base stays untouched in NLA.
  Destructive: Writes keys directly to the target (use when you need final, baked data).