Thread for walk cycle - learning

[zoesan]

I'm once again on the walk cycle task. I've uploaded what I think is a good example, although it maybe considered dated by some. The upload is from Victor's early work demonstrating his walk ruler. Attempted to make a facsimile. In the static pose it's fine, but once it's tasked with walking things don't work out. If over the course of posts, Victors demonstration is considered a good example, I'd like to continue posting using Victors example. Otherwise, after this post, I won't make a thread, instead try and figure it out from other posts on walk cycle on the web.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vy8fk83sxf21d ... y.mov?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/v5lerdu0mh5ax ... y.jpg?dl=0

I've posted two dropbox links. One is the complete video and the other is a request on how the parenting works between the joints.

[synthsin75]

Victor's work is always top notch.

Those joint bones likely have the joint points bound to them and rotate half as much as the joint, to maintain volume in the joints. It's an older technique, before smart bones.

[Greenlaw]

I use Victor's 'joint' bone trick routinely along with a Smart Bone Action (for the lower bending half of the limb). Depending on the character design, this technique can be less fiddly to set up than using an SBA alone. For example, many of the Boss Baby rigs I built use this setup in the elbows and knees.

Basically, you Point Bind the inside and outside points (of the elbow or knee artwork) to that 'joint' bone and, as Wes described, this bone maintains a 50% rotation between the upper and lower limb bones to preserve volume. This bone is automatically rotated when Angle Constraint is enabled for that bone with 0.5 setting. (It could be -0.5 depending on which side you place the bone.)

What I also like to do is set the Curvature for the two 'joint' points to Smooth in frame 0, but in the first frame of the two limb SBAs, change Curvature of the 'inside bending' point to an Corner point. This gives you a nice round outer bend and a nice sharper inner bend in the joint when the limb bends in that direction. This is much quicker than setting up a complex point animation inside the Action, and it looks pretty good!

When I'm done setting up the 'joint' bones, I like to Shy these bones because they shouldn't ever be touched by the animator.

Hope this helps.

[zoesan]

Thanks both Synthsin75 and Greenlaw. So as I understand it the bones are made after you've rigged. They are separate and not parented to another bone. You then point bind to these joint bones and can be used in conjunction with SBA. As always will have to give it a go and get back to you. This might explain the next question in the thread.

Basically, you Point Bind the inside and outside points (of the elbow or knee artwork) to that 'joint' bone and, as Wes described, this bone maintains a 50% rotation between the upper and lower limb bones to preserve volume. This bone is automatically rotated when Angle Constraint is enabled for that bone with 0.5 setting. (It could be -0.5 depending on which side you place the bone.)

[synthsin75]

Thanks both Synthsin75 and Greenlaw. So as I understand it the bones are made after you've rigged. They are separate and not parented to another bone. You then point bind to these joint bones and can be used in conjunction with SBA. As always will have to give it a go and get back to you. This might explain the next question in the thread.

No, the elbow joint bone is parented to either the upper or lower arm bone. You point-bind the two points either side of the joint. Then you either animate the curvature of those points or setup a SB to handle that.

[Greenlaw]

I threw together a simple example:



The small Elbow bone is parented to the ArmUp bone, and it has the Constraint setting below applied to keep it halfway rotated based on the rotation of the ArmLo bone. In this example, the value is 0.5 or 50%. If this bone is the other side of the arm bones, use -0.5 instead.



In the armLo Smart Bone Action, I set the Curvature of the inside elbow point to change from Smooth to Corner at about 6 frames in. For the opposite SBA, the curvature change happens on the other elbow point. This is more or less what I what I described in the earlier post.

Here's the project:

ElbowJointExample.moho

Hope this helps.

Edit: Sorry for the error in the previous version...the file has been corrected.

[zoesan]

Thanks again both of you. I was trying before amended replies and it wasn't quite working out. So checked the forum.
will get back to the drawing board, before I post anything more of the de-construction of Victors file. It incorporates the problems that I need to get to grips with.

[zoesan]

I've come across an Anime Studio Webinar in the How to section of the forum: Character Rigging for 2D Animators using Anime Studio by Victor from 2012: The question was posted by formxshape April 24th 2021: How do I make characters move more dynamically.

https://youtu.be/sO4LrtMe9DE

It answers all my questions(ish). I've never seen this video before. It's early stuff I know and software development has moved on for Moho, but I find this ground work is essential. It's good to know you are in the company of professionals who are willing, however dated the question you might have, give up time and reply.

Whilst online. I notice there is now an image icon in the posting toolbar. . Does that mean you can now just drop an image directly and not go through 3rd parties. I'll give it a go as of when...

[Greenlaw]

I notice there is now an image icon in the posting toolbar. . Does that mean you can now just drop an image directly and not go through 3rd parties. I'll give it a go as of when...

That button is used to format a link to an image. The simplest way to use it is to paste your link, select it, then click the button. Then the link will look like something like this in the post editor:

Code: Select all

[img]https://linkToTheImage/theImage.png[/img]

...and it will display in your post when you click Preview or Submit.

The image still needs to be hosted by a third party.

I like to use Dropbox for its flexibility and reliability. Just right-click on the image in the Dropbox app, copy the link, and paste it here. You need to change dl=0 to raw=1 to display the image, otherwise it will try to download. Then select the edited link and click the Image button.

It's a small hassle but the advantage with Dropbox is that I can easily edit or replace the image, and even move it to another the folder, and the original link will remain valid. Most other services don't have this level of flexibility. I use the paid version of Dropbox but I think this the same with the free version.

Hope this helps.

[zoesan]

Thanks Greenlaw, will give it a go, once I'm through with continuing my research in the thread. So much to learn, so little time.