As I see it, there are two ways to achieve a character walking, using actions:
1. Draw the man walking "in place". Using this method, you have to "translate" the layer he's on to make him travel forwards. Using this method, it's really difficult to "plant" the feet on the ground, as if you use "lock bone", the locked bone actually gets moved with the layer... not the desired effect. This approach gives the character the appearance of ice-skating.
2. Draw the man walking a whole step forward. This is great for "locking" those planted feet to the ground. I had hoped that if I strung this action several times in the main timeline, the walking action would pick up where it left off. Unfortunately, the action "resets" itself, and the character never makes it more than a whole step in one direction.
As you can see, each approach seems to have its significant downside. Does anyone out there have a 3rd way of doing this? Walking is so fundamental to all cartoons, I want to get it right.
I guess a 3rd way would be to animate the walk directly in the main timeline, and cycle it. I don't really want to do it this way, as it would be difficult to "reuse" this walk in other areas of the cartoon.
Best way to make character walk, using actions?
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
Answering my own question
This is the technique I settled on, and it works pretty well, so I'm posting it here in case anyone else a. wants to try it; b. has a better approach they would like to recommend.
1. create a step action for your character. The action should be of the character taking a full step, actually travelling forward for the step. If you insert the action multiple times in the main time line, the character will take an actual step forward, and will cycle back to the starting point for every instance of the action.
2. in your action view for the step, calculate how far the main bone travels from the start to the end. You can do this by taking the difference between the "y" values.
3. now you have your stride length, edit your step action so that the step occurs "in place". This is easy to do by using onion-skinning to drag your main bone back on to itself in each frame that it has moved forward.
4. in your main timeline, insert "n" number of step actions. Translate the bone layer "n * [stride-length]" for the course of the step actions. This will move the character at the exact pace required for his stepping.
This technique looks pretty good, and does not require the inconvenience of bone-locking.
1. create a step action for your character. The action should be of the character taking a full step, actually travelling forward for the step. If you insert the action multiple times in the main time line, the character will take an actual step forward, and will cycle back to the starting point for every instance of the action.
2. in your action view for the step, calculate how far the main bone travels from the start to the end. You can do this by taking the difference between the "y" values.
3. now you have your stride length, edit your step action so that the step occurs "in place". This is easy to do by using onion-skinning to drag your main bone back on to itself in each frame that it has moved forward.
4. in your main timeline, insert "n" number of step actions. Translate the bone layer "n * [stride-length]" for the course of the step actions. This will move the character at the exact pace required for his stepping.
This technique looks pretty good, and does not require the inconvenience of bone-locking.
Walk Cycle
I agree that a good walk cycle is the backbone of many animation clips. It would be so great if someone could write a tuorial with pictures and all to help out all the newbies, and maybe even a few veterans. Thanks Brian
Good tutorial here
Someone posted a great tutorial for walking a single step forward here. If you combine his walking (sans bone-locking) with my "stride length" technique above, you'll end up with pretty good walking action.
-
mystictune
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2004 5:37 pm
- Location: Kuala Lumpur
- Contact:
Sure...
... I'll post some details on how I did it, including an example Moho file... I just need some time to make it presentable. Check back here soon.
Hey grimble - going back a few posts, I had thought of doing what youd suggested with the actions and translations, but I thought that all the translations might be a bit of a pain, so I put a "repeat last translation" button (also one for rotations) in my universal layer tool for just this kind of thing. I broke the reset button in the process, but i think I can get that fixed tonight and I'll put it up then. Should make this technique a lot faster.
--Brian
--Brian
Small tutorial
Hey 7Feet, that sounds like a handy tool. I'll look for your download when it's ready.
I've put together a quick tutorial on my newly discovered technique. It can be found here.
I've put together a quick tutorial on my newly discovered technique. It can be found here.
Last edited by grimble67 on Fri Apr 01, 2005 1:48 am, edited 2 times in total.
, for taking the time to make a tut, Its been very helpful for a begginer like me.to grimble67:
my ways is quite simple, u dont need to concern how far ur character will go:
create a walking cycle(walk in place, dont need to forward)
translate the action layer forward, this brings "sliding steps", right?
so why sliding? --- because when the foot step on ground, it should be still, but the layer translate it forward. that brings sliding, right?
so, all we need to do is to delete/stop the translation where it should not move. that means:
1. translate the walking cycle layer
2. break the translation into frame by frame animation
3. stop/delete the frames that should not move
i do this in flash and it solves the sliding problem completely.but i m new to moho so i m not sure if moho ends up with the same effect, but i think moho will do.
its quite hard to explain without images.
my ways is quite simple, u dont need to concern how far ur character will go:
create a walking cycle(walk in place, dont need to forward)
translate the action layer forward, this brings "sliding steps", right?
so why sliding? --- because when the foot step on ground, it should be still, but the layer translate it forward. that brings sliding, right?
so, all we need to do is to delete/stop the translation where it should not move. that means:
1. translate the walking cycle layer
2. break the translation into frame by frame animation
3. stop/delete the frames that should not move
i do this in flash and it solves the sliding problem completely.but i m new to moho so i m not sure if moho ends up with the same effect, but i think moho will do.
its quite hard to explain without images.
an animator