Walk Cycle

# 1 09-01-2003 , 07:58 PM

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This is my first go a skeletons and animation and i'm stuck/

I'm trying to make a walk cycle and i have trouble animating it. I've made the legs and added the IK Handle's. I animated the leg moving up & forward but bringing the step down & forward is where i'm stuck as the leg wont go down that far as there is a bend and the knee.

I think there may be a problem with the arrangemant in the hypergraph.

Can anyone tell me what i'm doing wrong and/or direct me to a tutorial.

And, so you can see the problem 1st hand, here's the file.

user added image

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# 2 09-01-2003 , 08:18 PM

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Ok bud, first off you need a pelvis shift between the hip and root joint. And than you need a joint between the heel and toe called a ball joint.

I'll set up a lower skeleton for ya give me a few minutes...

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination, knowledge is limited, imagination encircles the world. (Albert Einstein)

https://www.artstation.com/kurtb

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# 3 09-01-2003 , 08:24 PM

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You're on the right track here. Only missing a couple of things.

In order to get your leading leg to be able to step forward, you actually need to move the entire body forward as well. When you walk, your whole body moves, not just your legs. In addition to moving forward, the torso will need to move down a bit as well to allow the feet to touch the ground.

The way you have your rig setup right now does not allow for easy animation. You should parent the IK handles to some form of control object -- the easiest thing to use is a null object. You should also parent the root of the skeleton (in your case, "joint1") to a control object. When you animate, you manipulate the control objects instead of the IK handles.

I've attached a slightly modified version of your file so you can see what I mean. In this file, I've keyed in a very basic step animation to illustrate my first point. I've also rebuilt your IK handles (you were missing on and something was acting weird), and I've used custom NURBS curves as control handles. Take a look at the file and let me know if you have any questions.

Danny Ngan
Animator | Amaze Entertainment
my website | my blog | my job

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# 4 09-01-2003 , 08:26 PM

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hehe danny beat to YA hehehehehe. well here my vershion if you want it also....

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination, knowledge is limited, imagination encircles the world. (Albert Einstein)

https://www.artstation.com/kurtb

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# 5 09-01-2003 , 08:31 PM

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Didn't beat you by much though. And we did almost exactly the same thing. Cool foot roll SDK there. I don't usually use them, but what you have works very well.

Danny Ngan
Animator | Amaze Entertainment
my website | my blog | my job

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# 6 09-01-2003 , 08:35 PM

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I can open your file danny. Maya said cant open it, curupted some how=(

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination, knowledge is limited, imagination encircles the world. (Albert Einstein)

https://www.artstation.com/kurtb

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# 7 09-01-2003 , 08:37 PM

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Weird. How about a zip file...

Danny Ngan
Animator | Amaze Entertainment
my website | my blog | my job

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# 8 09-01-2003 , 08:38 PM

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It's a Maya 4.5 file, btw.

Danny Ngan
Animator | Amaze Entertainment
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# 9 09-01-2003 , 11:49 PM

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heres a walk cycle I'm working on atm - might be helpful for reference? (or it may blow.. been looking at it so long i cant tell user added image

)

https://www.visualmuffins.1hwy.com/walkies.swf
( 40k )

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# 10 10-01-2003 , 12:05 AM

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kal, that's looking pretty good. I think the torso need to be further forward, more towards the leading leg, but otherwise, it's working out well.

Danny Ngan
Animator | Amaze Entertainment
my website | my blog | my job

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# 11 10-01-2003 , 12:28 AM

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Thanks danny - was sort of hopeing you or kurt would chip in user added image

[though its bad form on my part for jumping in on someone else thread like this]
anyway thanks for the advice - I see exactly what you mean.. funny how after looking at somthing for so long you fail to notice the obvious user added image

heres a slightly ammended version
https://www.visualmuffins.1hwy.com/walkies2.swf
still need to iron out the knee popping (any tips on that too? user added image

)

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# 12 10-01-2003 , 01:12 AM

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I cant open the file.......My quick Time never works right......

Knee poping can be fixed by either lowering him down a bit at the point where it pops and by adding a extra key one frame in front of the knee pop at the lowered height.

Its a bit hard to explain, hope you understand....

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination, knowledge is limited, imagination encircles the world. (Albert Einstein)

https://www.artstation.com/kurtb

Last edited by Kurt; 10-01-2003 at 01:17 AM.

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# 13 10-01-2003 , 04:21 AM

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Quicktime? It's a Shockwave Flash file... user added image

Basically what Kurt said. You may also want to keep an eye on how far you move your feet control forward. Moving them too far will cause your joint chain to lock up. You could also set rotation constraints on the joints.

Danny Ngan
Animator | Amaze Entertainment
my website | my blog | my job

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# 14 21-01-2003 , 01:41 PM

Kevin

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heres a little foot rig i done with a few SDK`s on...

Its part 1 of the foot rig tutorial thats going out this week.

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# 15 22-01-2003 , 06:45 AM

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Kev, nice job on the foot rig. One question though: if you're using SDKs on the ball and toe, why not on the heel as well? From a production standpoint, it's a bit inconsistent using two different animation methodologies on the same appendage. Just being picky. user added image

Danny Ngan
Animator | Amaze Entertainment
my website | my blog | my job

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Walk Cycle

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