apply automatic walking/running animations to characters???

[mixedup]

Hi,

I'm after a character pack that including walking & running type animations. That is I don't want to have to do these myself. How to I know if a character pack will include this?

For example, I just bought Paul [http://www.contentparadise.com/productD ... x?id=19062] however I can NOT see how to make him walk or run. I can see how to set facial expressions.

So overall questions are:

Q1 - How can I find content (e.g. character) that has has Running/Sliding/Walking/FallOver type animations?

or

Q2 - Is it possible with the PAUL animation that I purchased, to buy another generic walking/running sequence and somehow apply it to him?

[wizaerd]

While making a walk or run cycle can be incredibly complex, it doesn't need to be. Depending on your animation goals, it could be as simple as three individual poses. Or better yet, with camera placement it could be as simple as transforming the character and bypassing moving the arms and legs altogether.

I looked at the Paul character you linked to, and the side view would be fairly easy to build a simple walk cycle for.

[mixedup]

Seem like with all the paid content available none of the characters actually have actions like walking/running/crouching as part of them which seems interesting to me as someone starting out.

[neeters_guy]

Q2 - Is it possible with the PAUL animation that I purchased, to buy another generic walking/running sequence and somehow apply it to him?

I've bought other Animation Catalyst products and they didn't include any pre-built animations (actions). I think adding the actions would be great value for these products. The 10-phoneme mouth switch is fairly standard, why not actions like walk, run, jump, fall, kick, climb? Anyway, there are scripts that export/import animations, but you're still left with the problem of acquiring the animations themselves.

Until some content maker makes such a product, I think you're better off animating these yourself, at least the walk and run.



Here's primer for an elementary walk and run.

A basic Walk
1) Put a bone rotation keys (Freeze pose, ctrl-f) on 1,7,13,19,25
2) Create stride poses on 1 and 13 (25 is the same as 1), passing pose on 7 and 19. (See cheat sheet below.)
3) On frames 7 and 19, translate the root bone (usually the pelvis bone) up a bit. Reset the bone on frame 1,13,25.
4)For cycling, change the keys on frame 25 to a cycle key back to frame 2.

A run is basically the same as a walk, except for the introduction of flying pose between the stride and passing poses. These pictures tell it better:



Obviously these are a very generic cycles. You can add some pizzazz by adding followthrough, stretch-n-squash, easing, etc.

Good luck with this.

Fire Mage Aria rig by Paolo SC, Animation Catalyst

[mixedup]

Excellent. Thanks heaps for the tips.

[chasethepassion]

Many thanks to Neeters_guy , this running cycle guide is clear, great for a newbie like me.

I will let you know my result soon.

[chasethepassion]

Hello nester_guy,

I did as you guide. But something wrong with my character, it is not really smooth...

Please feel free to check my download project file below.

http://easyielts.org/NV%20em%20be%2030s ... cycle.anme

Thank you so much.

[neeters_guy]

Hello nester_guy,
I did as you guide. But something wrong with my character, it is not really smooth...

I sent you a pm.

One problem was that you mixed up the left and right legs..hard to tell which leg is which especially when a character wears a skirt. Also, you need to add the up-and-down motion. This is important to create a feeling of weight.

I realize that my diagrams are not clear in this regard, so I made a new one showing the upstage and downstage legs more clearly.


Also try to anchor the feet using a ground line as shown here.


Anyway, I think I've monopolized the thread enough. Good luck.

[mixedup]

good stuff - I also just noted that the PRO version has a character wizard and you create 4 actions using this for the characters (including walk)....

[neeters_guy]

chasethepassion asked about movement for the hair and dress. For that, I would add a couple bones to manipulate the dress, a front bone and back bone, then point bind the corresponding points of the dress.



For the hair, point bind the head hair to the head bone and flexi-bind the ponytail to the ponytail bones. In the original file, bone dynamics are applied to the ponytail bones. I think it's better to do it manually in this case, so I turned them off.

To animate, move the hair and dress in the opposite direction of the body movement. Eg., if she's up, move her hair down, when she's down, move the hair up. There's more to it of course, so I suggest looking up "drag" and "follow through" in a good animation book.



Voila!

[chasethepassion]

Thank you so much for your excellent support, neeters_guy

I really so happy when you take time to fix "little girl" character for me.