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First ever walk cycle

Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 7:57 pm
by patrick
I've had Anime Studio for about a month and this is my first ever walk cycle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dC2_4Lx7_Gc

Any comments welcome.

Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 8:53 pm
by Víctor Paredes
very good first walk cycle. i remember mine were horrible.
there are several ways to make walk cycles, here is a tutorial published by teotoon.

http://www.geocities.com/teotoon/Moho/walktutor.zip

(i found it in http://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=36)


i made my own walk tutor in spanish, here
http://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4022

Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 9:41 pm
by patrick
selgin wrote:very good first walk cycle. i remember mine were horrible.
there are several ways to make walk cycles, here is a tutorial published by teotoon.

http://www.geocities.com/teotoon/Moho/walktutor.zip

(i found it in http://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=36)


i made my own walk tutor in spanish, here
http://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4022
What would you do to improve it?

Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 9:50 pm
by Mikdog
Patrick - I would do a LOT to improve it.

Firstly, you show no sense of weight. His body should be leaning forward slightly. His shoulders should move opposite to his legs. His head doesn't even move...

I could explain ENDLESS points to you - the best thing to do is get up and walk yourself, and take note of each body part. See how your stomach and hips and shoulders and neck ALL move in relation to the steps you make? I'm not an expert animator, and HIGHLY recommend you read Richard Williams' "The Animator's Survival Kit" (or something like that. I think that's what it's called).

Good job for your first attempt, see you got the knee bend and it doesn't look like a run, which my first walk cycles looked like.

Anyway, there's a whole lot of visual information you're missing, and my guess is you'll crack it soon.

Posted: Sat Oct 21, 2006 11:51 pm
by patrick
Mikdog wrote:Patrick - I would do a LOT to improve it.

Firstly, you show no sense of weight. His body should be leaning forward slightly. His shoulders should move opposite to his legs. His head doesn't even move...

I could explain ENDLESS points to you - the best thing to do is get up and walk yourself, and take note of each body part. See how your stomach and hips and shoulders and neck ALL move in relation to the steps you make? I'm not an expert animator, and HIGHLY recommend you read Richard Williams' "The Animator's Survival Kit" (or something like that. I think that's what it's called).

Good job for your first attempt, see you got the knee bend and it doesn't look like a run, which my first walk cycles looked like.

Anyway, there's a whole lot of visual information you're missing, and my guess is you'll crack it soon.
Due to bad character design, moving the shoulders much isn't possible.

I had deliberately left the body rigid, but your are right, it looks odd. I've added a bit of movement (not updated the film in the post though).

Part of my struggle is learning Anime Studio, as well as animating. I'll order that book now...

Re: First ever walk cycle

Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 12:59 am
by idragosani
patrick wrote:I've had Anime Studio for about a month and this is my first ever walk cycle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUnoPVMAnng

Any comments welcome.
Not bad for a first start, but you need to get the entire body into the act. Take a look at how people walk and note how the head moves, the shoulders, the hips, how the leg pushes when it goes down, and so on.

If you want a thorough overview on creating animated walk cycles, get a copy of The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams... about hlaf the book is devoted to walk cycles.

Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 4:56 pm
by peeg
Hi Patrick

First it might be a good idea to just render the character out so we can see him clearly.

1. He needs to rise in the middle of the stride and fall at the end as foot strikes the ground fro the next step.

2. His head needs to bob a little, down as he rise and up as he falls

3. Move his arms so that hands going through cycle slightly slower than rest of the arm. It'll give a little sway to the motion.

See what that looks like then we'll have another fiddle.

Cheers

Paul

Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 5:13 pm
by patrick
peeg wrote:Hi Patrick

First it might be a good idea to just render the character out so we can see him clearly.

1. He needs to rise in the middle of the stride and fall at the end as foot strikes the ground fro the next step.

2. His head needs to bob a little, down as he rise and up as he falls

3. Move his arms so that hands going through cycle slightly slower than rest of the arm. It'll give a little sway to the motion.

See what that looks like then we'll have another fiddle.

Cheers

Paul
Because I knew the feet wouldn't be seen in the final scene I have not animated them properly, so seeing him clearing may not be such a good idea! :wink:

I've done 1 and 2 already which made a difference (and about to compile the entire scene of which it is a part, I'll post the whole thing then).

I don't understand what you mean by 3?

Thanks for the feedback. It is hard to be objective with your own stuff when working closely on something.

Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 5:25 pm
by idragosani
patrick wrote:
Because I knew the feet wouldn't be seen in the final scene I have not animated them properly, so seeing him clearing may not be such a good idea! :wink:

I've done 1 and 2 already which made a difference (and about to compile the entire scene of which it is a part, I'll post the whole thing then).

I don't understand what you mean by 3?

Thanks for the feedback. It is hard to be objective with your own stuff when working closely on something.
I think for the sake of getting the walk correct, you should include the feet, even if they won't be seen in the final cut.

For #3, he is referring to animation techniques called 'overlapping action' and 'follow through', so when the arm swings, the hand will lag slightly behind the arm; likewise when the arm reverses direction, the hand will continue in the original direction for a few frames before following the arm and swinging back. This will give a lot more personality to the walk. A determined or pissed off character might have stiffer hands (or balled fists) so they don't follow through as much -- this tells more about how the character is behaving than anything else.

Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 5:39 pm
by patrick
idragosani wrote:
patrick wrote:
Because I knew the feet wouldn't be seen in the final scene I have not animated them properly, so seeing him clearing may not be such a good idea! :wink:

I've done 1 and 2 already which made a difference (and about to compile the entire scene of which it is a part, I'll post the whole thing then).

I don't understand what you mean by 3?

Thanks for the feedback. It is hard to be objective with your own stuff when working closely on something.
I think for the sake of getting the walk correct, you should include the feet, even if they won't be seen in the final cut.

For #3, he is referring to animation techniques called 'overlapping action' and 'follow through', so when the arm swings, the hand will lag slightly behind the arm; likewise when the arm reverses direction, the hand will continue in the original direction for a few frames before following the arm and swinging back. This will give a lot more personality to the walk. A determined or pissed off character might have stiffer hands (or balled fists) so they don't follow through as much -- this tells more about how the character is behaving than anything else.
Yeah, you are right, maybe I should have done the feet properly. Is just laziness on my part.

Thanks for explaining 3. He is determined, but that is just a fluke, I had not even thought to animate the hands in that way, but will definitely use it on my next walk cycle.

Plus, the Animator's Survival Guide arrived yesterday, which can only help!

Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 5:40 pm
by idragosani
patrick wrote: Plus, the Animator's Survival Guide arrived yesterday, which can only help!
That's a great book!

Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 9:13 pm
by Rasheed
However, remember, The Animator's Survival Guide is based on traditional animation. You still have to translate it to vector (cut out) animation, which is overall less subtle than pixel based or hand drawn animation. Some animators on this forum develop their rough walk cycles on paper before implementing them in Anime Studio, because pencil and paper is so much more subtle and tactile than vectors and nodes translations.

Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 9:16 pm
by idragosani
Rasheed wrote:However, remember, The Animator's Survival Guide is based on traditional animation. You still have to translate it to vector (cut out) animation, which is overall less subtle than pixel based or hand drawn animation. Some animators on this forum develop their rough walk cycles on paper before implementing them in Anime Studio, because pencil and paper is so much more subtle and tactile than vectors and nodes translations.
It can be done with vector animation, you just need more keys and use breakdown postions and not rely on the computer to do all of the in-betweening

Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 9:24 pm
by Víctor Paredes
know somebody if can i download The Animator's Survival Guide in the web?

Posted: Tue Oct 24, 2006 9:28 pm
by idragosani
selgin wrote:know somebody if can i download The Animator's Survival Guide in the web?
You can't (at least not legally), it's print only.