Animation: Walk Cycle for Karate Doggie

[Yorgo12345]

Dude, I'm sorry to say, I didn't like it.

The main thing that it's missing is weight shifts. When a character walks, his weight is transferred to the contact leg. That means that if he were to be frozen instantly in that pose, he would not fall over. Ya with me? that's the telltale sign of pro vs. amature animation.

Next would be the motion of the trunk. Presently it merely rotates as though it were on a pivot. try adding a swinging/arcing motion to it. Then try to have the trunk "throw the arms" into their motion range, and then have the arms "tug" the trunk at the apex of that range. Also, adding some slight secondary motion to the hand at the wrist goes a long way.

finally the head. I like the head. but it could use some secondary motion when you fix the trunk.

also the feet.... they aren't solid on the ground, and they don't look like they hold or shift any weight. put an extra bone in them and bend the toes before lift. exxagerate it a bit, your character is a charicature and he NEEDS exaggeration to really look alive.


whew! that's alot of CC.
Hopefeully it's helpfull, I like your character, I like the design and modelling. I hope you'll spend a few more hours on the animation to really bring it to life!

Keep it up

and keep posting! I'd like to see where you take this!

[hopper2k]

Thanks. I'm glad I finally got a good reply to this. I'm still learning a lot about 3D, and have been doing for only about a year. After a year of school, I still wasn't satisfied with my modelling and animation skills. After working and being satisfied with my modelling skills earlier this summer, it was finally time to work on my animating skills, which is what I'm doing now. This was my 3rd walk cycle, and I knew it still needed a lot of work, but just didn't know what, which is why I posted it here for critique (I should've posed it in the WIP). I did another test animation in the WIP titled "Animation: Hulk Hogain-style posing" with this same character, not sure if you've seen it yet. I couldn't help but start a project with Karate Doggie which I hope to get done within the next 2 weeks, which is going to challenge my animation skills.

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