animation Simple walk cycle

[geldslaw]

whenI get back, I'll put it into a complete walk cycle, but for now I'm happy with my first effort.

[Motammad]

is it your first walk cycle ever?
its not bad actually... reminds me of some dance moves.
cant wait to see the complete walk cycle aye

PS. can you teach me how you made it? because im utterly stuck in rigging>animating...

[geldslaw]

3D Animation Tip: Walking the Walk
written by Donovan Keith on Wednesday, February 13, 2002
Learn the basics of a believable, simulated strut.


A "walk cycle" is a loopable animation of a character walking in place that can be used to easily and believably move a character along a path. By animating a single walk cycle, rather than manually animating every footstep, you can save a lot of time. This article will cover the basics of creating a believable walk cycle.

Key poses
There are four important key poses: contact, recoil, passing, and high point.

Contact -- The contact pose is the most important pose in your walk cycle. The contact pose occurs three times in any walk cycle: once at the start of the cycle, once at the end, and once in the middle (actually a mirror of the first pose).

The contact point is the moment in the walk cycle where the character shifts its weight from one leg to the other. If the right foot is extended forward, the hips should be rotated so that they point down on the right and forward.
The shoulders should be rotated in the opposite direction of the hips so that the character remains balanced. The arms should rotate in the opposite direction of the legs, so if the right leg is extended forward, the right arm should be rotated backward.

Recoil --
This pose occurs directly after the contact pose. In this pose, the foot that just made contact should be flat on the ground. The back heel should be lifted and the knee bent. The hips should move down toward the ground. This is the lowest pose in the walk cycle.

Passing --
In this pose, the foot touching the ground should remain flat. The foot not on the ground should be lifted slightly above the ground.

High point --
As the name suggests, this is the highest point in the walk cycle. The weight of your character should be shifted up and forward. This pose is basically preparing your character to "fall" into the next contact pose (a mirror of the first).

For a more "cartoony" walk cycle, simply exaggerate all of these poses.

Timing
The length of time it takes for a walk cycle to complete is a key factor in expressing information about your character. The average walk cycle is about one second long. A longer walk cycle will imply that your character is larger and more lumbering (slower to start and stop any motion).

http://www.g4tv.com/techtvvault/feat..._the_Walk.html
(Image to the right: The character on the left is going to have a slower walk cycle than the character on the right. If the character on the right is trying to keep pace with the bigger character on the left, he will have a faster-than-average walk cycle.)

A longer walk cycle is also useful when trying to convey that your character is depressed or sleepy. Shorter walk cycles are best-suited to smaller characters and characters that are in a hurry.

Frame rate
The frame rate in which you animate your walk cycle will depend on your intended output. A way to save some time when animating is to work at half the desired frame rate. In traditional animation, this is called "animating on twos."

For example, if you wanted to output at 24 frames per second (fps) (the frame rate of films in movie theaters) you would animate at 12 fps. Thus, if you were to animate the average walk cycle (one second) "on twos," you would end up with 12 frames of completed animation.

The following is a general guideline for the timing of the key poses animated at 12 fps:

Frame 1: Contact
Frame 2: Recoil
Frame 4: Passing
Frame 5: High Point
Frame 7: Contact (mirror of frame 1)
Frame 8: Recoil (mirror of frame 2)
Frame 10: Passing (mirror of frame 4)
Frame 11: High Point (mirror of frame 5)
Frame 13: Contact (copy of frame 1)

To make the walk cycle less "snappy," space the key poses more evenly over time.

Donovan Keith is a college student, artist, and animation instructor.


hope this helps

[geldslaw]

its difficult, at first, but I'm also studying traditional 2d animation and reading some good books, of which are reviewed in the 3ds max specific section but I will ask Jelmer to move them to a book review section.

but patience and persistence are the best friends you can have, but also visualize the goal to be achieved in your mind

[Motammad]

...reminds me of chinese language...
hehe, ok, i will try my best... but how did you rig your character, so it would be animatable?... thats where im actually stuck...

[TE_]

cool,, he walks like a rapper =)

[Jelmer]

pretty nice, it's a bit too short to review well though, another thing i could recommend is making the video in quicktime, mainly because it allows you to view each individual frame by sliding the time thing..

[geldslaw]

true, I did that woth the fire. I'll tell you what though, getting a walk cycle that looks ok aint easy, when it goes wrong you know about it. I'll be doing another one with him doing some acting tomorrow.

wish me luck