why are rigify's IK pole targets Hidden in pose mode

Question

I have a character parented to a rigify Armature. I want to stop my character from contorting (e.g., elbow twisted into torso area) as I set the Hand_IK. I would assume that I could use the IK pole or pole target. I see that these exist but are not accessible in the Pose Mode and are Hidden based on a Driver:

with the function:

pose.bones["upper_arm_parent.R"]["pole_vector"]

How can I gain access to the Pole Target? In fact I don't even see any bones (e.g., "Hand_fk.L") that have a IK constraint listing either it's "Hand_IK.L" IK or Pole -- how to even discover these?!

Answer 1

The properties to control the Rigify rig are in the N-panel.

(You need to confirm the script security warning if you open the file the first time after Blender started because it runs some initialization script. Be careful if you have downloaded the model from the internet. The included script may be harmful.)

Depending on which control bone you select you will get different options. There is a "gear" bone at the shoulder that displays all options for the arm and hand if you select it.

In the tab Item, section Item > Rig Main Properties, there is the Toggle Pole switch. Set it to 1 to show the pole for the elbow.

Hand_fk.L is the FK control bone. It's on bone layer 9 and looks like a green circle (like the legs in the screenshot). With the Rig Layer buttons in the N-panel you can show & hide them. There are also IK->FK buttons to make the IK snap the FK bones and vice versa. And IK-FK (bone name) (0.000-1.000) to set the influence between the IK and FK bones.