When I record simulation the final mesh animation is off in some areas, I have tried every combination of settings in the record simulation options. I used extract simulation (with and without attach controls) which made the mesh animation be exactly the same as the simulation but totally broke the rig and I don’t know what to do in the node editor to make it all perfect again. It was working before, and I don’t what happened but I really need this to work to move my project forward. Please help me resolve this.
Hi @paranoyd_j0, welcome to the forums! 
Sorry to hear you are struggling, when recording produces different results, it’s typically because the rig cannot do what the simulation does. For example, a control could have locked rotate X and Y channels, whilst the simulation rotates around those axes freely.
Are you able to post an example of what you are seeing? Things break in all sorts of ways, and it will be important and relevant to see or know exactly what it is that breaks.
If not, are you able to reproduce the problem in a new scene, and post a series of steps we can use to reproduce it?
most of the pages follow the simulation but its not a perfect match, it was working before and I don’t what happened. But when I do extract simulation, it matches totally perfectly but messes up the rig
Hm, there is a lot going on, what specifically is not following perfectly?
- Are you able to compare the extracted joint to the control constrained to it?
- When and where do they start to become unaligned?
- Are there translate values coming from the simulation, but translate channels locked in the rig?
- Is the rig doing anything other than FK, e.g. IK or additional constraints for space switching etc?
do you see the weird gaps between pages? it should not be there, they should all be lying perfectly on each other, but they are either clipping through or not following simulation pages and hovering apart from each other.
the simulation is targeted to control curves which in turn are connected to the joints.
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I dont know what you mean by compare extracted joint to control constraint
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this is after I extract simulation, you can see how its perfect now, you can compare this to the previous video and see the difference
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not sure if translate channels are locked on the rig, the joints are being controlled by control curves, how would I check?
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there is no IK, just standard fk on all joints. I dont know what space switching is
Ok, could you try this?
- Extract Simulation, without attaching
- Pick one of your controls that break, and manually Parent Constraint it to the corresponding joint
When you extract without attaching, you should see a new joint hierarchy with the simulation on it. By manually constraining your one control to one of the joints, are you able to spot why it isn’t following correctly?