Walk cycle and mocca questions

[JoshM]

Originally posted by fer 3d
Hi everyone!

1) Is there a "recommended routine" to create a walk cycle in mocca? Such as "move pelvis first, then foot, then arms" or something like that?
2) Is there an easy way to cycle the steps, i.e.: animate one step, and then "duplicate the motion" to create the next steps, so that the character can walk for some distance without me having to repeat the same animation procedure n-times?
3) Since the position of the character at the beginning of each cycle is identical (just in a diferent place each time) I figured I could record keyframes for all beginnings of the cycle to make sure the body position is always correct, and so be able to animate the "inbetween positions" more accurately. The problem is that as I move the mime forward, it "bows", so I can't do the trick. Any solution to this?
4) Am I approaching this issue wrong alltogether? (I've never really tackled seriously a walk cycle before, so this is quite possible...).


fer

Hi,
1. All animators animate differently. But when I create a run or walk cycle I always animate the legs first. This is because the animation is focused on the legs, so then you can animate the arms, head, and hips according to how the legs are animated. Now of course this would change if your doing an animation that envolves a lot of arm movements but very minimal leg movements, you would begin by animating the arms than followed by the feet.

2. There is actually a very easy way to cycle steps: first, you keyframe the legs at their maximum distance at frame one, hold Shift+ drag and move the time slider to the end of the cycle (i.e farme 30) and then re-record all of your keyframes in the same position. Now repeat this process for the middle frame but move only one of the legs to the position of the other and then record the keyframes. Now w/o holding Shift drag the timeslider back to frame 1 (reseting the animation) then Shift+drag back to the middle frame and move the other leg (the one that hasn't been keyed for the middle frame) to the position of the alternate leg.

3. Answer #2 should help out with this question.

HTH

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