Began by keyframing the two feet – one forward and another backward. When played, it will appear as though the character is shuffling/sliding through its steps. This is to get where the position of the feet will be after a step is taken.
The heel is then lifted up at a certain keyframe and the toes is being curled up. Whilst working on this part of the animation, I stood up and walked around the room to observe how the feet naturally goes up and lands down again in a normal walk. I then animated my observation on this character.
A normal walk is done and the legs of the character does appear to move naturally. The pelvis needs to be rotated next, according to which side the step is taken. The pelvis tilts to the right when the right foot is forward and to the left when the left foot is foward. Therefore, the keyframe of the pelvis will just follow the number set in the first step.
Left and left, right and right.
The pelvis also has to rotate on the Z-axis so that when the right leg lifts up to take a step, the pelvis also tilts in the same direction. This also forms the rear moving left and right when a human walks. All adjustements that are done to the right are done to the left as well.
Arms also swing in a normal walk and that leads to the shoulders moving slightly as well. To animate this, the COG had to be rotate accordingly. In the walk cycle, the right arm moves forward when the left leg moves forward and vice versa. Thus, in the picture above, the COG is rotated to the right when the character's left leg is forward.
I found that the arms were a little to straight. Bending the elbows slightly to make it seem more natural.
Shoulders had to be rotated on the Y-axis to animate the arms swinging back and forth. Right arm and left leg.
Similarly with the left side of the animation.
The arms seem to have moved to much on the inside of the character. It gives an unnatural walk and I had to adjust it. Again, standing up and walking up and down the room to get the idea of how a standard walk is done – the arms swing back and forth but doesn't get in the way of the body or thighs.
A playblast of the standard walk animation done above.
Reflections
Half of this part was completed in class and I got home and finished up the rest. It is a good start to do a standard walk first and then do a walk with attitude which is going to be in the next blog post. I felt that this exercise was quite simple. All the body parts (legs, arms, COG and pelvis) had to be keyframed and adjusted in the first second and after that it was repetitive work for the next five seconds.
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