what is hint and weight in IK?

i tried to find about these terms , what they actually mean. Csn someone plesae tell me about these terms? OR can provide a link where i can get information about them.

IK Weight is the amount that the IK will affect the animation… if you have a weight of 0, what you’re seeing in-game is entirely animation, and if you have a weight of one, then it’s entirely IK. If you were to set it at, say 0.5, you’d notice your character (or object or whatever) you be exactly halfway between where they should be in the animation and where the IK target is set.


IK Hint is like “IK Jazz”… good luck getting the same answer between any two people. My understanding, and the way I see it used, it’d be better to be called something like IK Rotation. As a specific example of an arm holding a gun: if the IK Target was where you wanted the left hand to hold onto the weapon (think an assault rifle where the left hand grips the mag), the IK Hint would be where you wanted the elbow joint to be. The effect of not having this IK Hint is that, when you aim up or down, the hand slides out of position since the elbow joint doesn’t know where to be.

… and how in the Hell am I the only person who’s ever commented on this in the last 2 years?