Project 2 Part 2 – Arrogant/Gangster Walk Cycle

Decided on animating an arrogant walk, the kind which the stereotypical gangster possesses. Started with tilting the character's chin up to make it seem proud.  

Searched for some videos online for cues and some of the walk features and found http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y2_qpUMTDc and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSLdeOBw5zg among a few others. I already had a proper idea on how the animation and walk should be done in my head but I just wanted to be sure on how to execute it. The head also slightly moves to the left and right with two or three steps taken.

A very common part of a gangster walk is the elaborate arm swing. The arm is swung much further than it would be in a normal walk cycle. To portray this, the value on the "Rotate Y" for the shoulder was multiplied by two and a half. The shoulder was also rotated a little more towards the outside of the body otherwise it will look unnatural when the arms swing in the path of the character's body. The gangster walk also has the arm swinging outwards more than it would normally. 

The clav also had to be adjusted, rotate Y axis was changed from 0 to 15 to be more specific, to make the arms swing out wider and giving the character the arrogant walk. 

Usually with the headphones on and the music being blasted loud, the character will bop its body in synchronization with the beat of the music played. That would result in the centre of gravity in going lower and I lowered it at alternate keyframe using the values -0.2 when the knees are straight and -0.8 when the knees are bent. 

The steps taken were adjusted slightly – it was made to take bigger steps.

A playblast of the animation.

Reflections

After completing the first walk cycle, this part was easier because I knew what to expect, what are the steps which needs to be taken and I knew the process which was going to be taken to complete the animation. I could learn from my mistakes I made in the first walk cycle and apply the shortcuts I found out to complete this walk cycle. The first few seconds were adjusted first and then played, when everything seemed to go smoothly, then all the keyframes are being copied for the remaining seconds – that is the tedious part of the whole animation. The video was two times longer because I didn't want the arrogant walk to be as fast as the standard walk cycle.