[ Animation - Walk Cycle ]

Animation - Walk Cycle

So above is a 10 sec walk-cycle video.

Below are some references :)

References

These references were found on the internet, the links as provided below :)

First reference

Plate 125 - Looping Nude Male Descending Stairs

http://sillydragon.com/muybridge/Plate_0125.html

This reference was originally used to aid the 

Second reference

http://yicheng600.blogspot.com/2010/12/walk-cycle-reserch-and-test.html 

Third Reference

Animation Reference - Female Standar Walk - Grid Overlay

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8Veye-N0A4

Learning Points & Reflections

The first few steps i took were to place the key poses as shown in the above image (Second Reference). Then i repeat to make a complete cycle which is 2 steps.

Next layer was to set the timing of the animation. After that was set i did a few inbetween-frames and edited the graph editor so the information would be clean. This also stops jerky animation in between the key frames.

Over all i had quite a difficult time doing this animation.

Here are some of the problems i faced:

1. Copy/Paste Key Frames
At first i thought that i could simply copy and paste the entire key-frame to form the continuous 10 seconds of walking. However after trying this out for the second set of foot-steps. I realized the graph would be messed up and sometimes the translations would be completely off and also pasting the key frames can sometimes mess up the continuous flow of steps.

I ended up only copying certain values to make a more uniform animation, however the rest were done by setting all the key-frames manually.

2. Editing

Sometimes while editing the graph within the graph editor, i tend to end up adding addition key-frames. Which in the end messed up the pose to pose style of animating and ending up with the straight-ahead way of animation. Which makes editing even harder.

3. Imagining the Key Frames


This was a problem i encounter while doing the box exercise for the assignment. I didn't include the video however i did include the reference. In the reference although very accurate, was missing a few inbetween frames so the animation would run more smoothly and the character doesn't have his feet cutting through the object (the stairs).

I ended up looking through quite a number of videos observing the way people would jump from ground to ground and from a higher ground to a lower ground level. After which i simply inserted the key frames. For the animation this "box-stepping", I added a slight ease in.  

Cheers,

Elixian