Is there a vibration in my walk cycle?

AGoodFella

I may be going crazy but I can't trust my eyes anymore. Do you see a vibration for the characters left leg on the walk cycle as it contacts the ground. I'm talking about the side view.

Sometimes I think I see it but sometimes I don't. The original cycle is fine but after it loops, sometimes I sense a vibration and sometimes, not so much. I've messed around in Maya but I can't find anything wrong. I've even pushed things more than I'd like and I don't notice a difference.

If I flip the video horizontally, then I sense a vibration on the other leg; so maybe its the angle that is causing it or maybe I'm seeing things. it may be fine but I thought I would check with you guys first.

https://syncsketch.com/playground/208dfc9fe2ea4909951f1634b44d830a#174969

Green_Cheek_Conure

Nope your not crazy its definitely there! Its certainly there! And yea idk why...but its more noticeable as the animation goes on in the later frames F150+ . . . No clue why...

But the problem with the back leg is the knee is poppin.
It goes
Knee Out-In-out. When it should be just a clean Out-In motion to match the rest of your smooth animation.

AnthonyAnimation

There's a knee pop as the foot contacts the ground. Also the way the arm with the gun moves in front of the leg adds to visual oddities. As the character looks around the arms get off synch with the normal cadence.

AGoodFella

Hmmmmm, I've rendered this so many times, it is starting to annoy me. I'm going to try to copy the animation to a fresh rig and see if that helps. 

Is the other leg ok because I will just copy that over to the other foot.

Hito

yeah definitely some hiccuping in the left leg... once just after toe leaves ground on the push off, and once when crossing over the right leg. To me it's very noticeable from the back view. impossible to say what it is without seeing the curves though. first things I look for are tangents at the loop frame, then make sure all the controllers curves are set to cycle if you used that option. besides that it maybe be stray keyed values on FK/IK blend, or blend speed isn't quite right. could be leg stretch blending between on/off...
 
Looking at it closer the ankle seems to be moving smoothly, the hiccup is confined in the foot/toe area. Maybe keep an eye on the channel boxes of the foot/toe while you scrub through see if any values pop.

AGoodFella

Here is a quick test of just copying the character's right leg to the left one. The character's right leg looks fine but copying the anim to the other leg and flipping the curves; it doesn't looks as good even though it is the same anim.

https://syncsketch.com/playground/c46ed290989d4910a5dbee8fc51718f5#174993

I'm going to revisit it this weekend but I'm at a loss as to how it can look different with the exact same curves. 

If all else fails, I'm going to try importing the animation to a fresh rig and redoing the anim for one leg and copying it to the other.

The look around is just a layer on top, I haven't touched the arms. Does it work?

tholmes3d

To ask an obviously question... Are your hip/root curves exactly the same for the left and right steps? If not, that would explain the different results even if the feet are exactly same.

AGoodFella

Screw it, I'm going to redo the walk cycle and start fresh with another rig.

I have a quick question, when you're offsetting curves for a cycle , do you grab the whole curve and offset it or only offset the high's and low's. I ask because if I offset the whole curve, then my first and end are no longer the same.

Thanks.

_adamturnbull

With cycles in the past when it comes to offsetting I've set all curves in the graph editor to loop (Cycle > Post Infinity / Pre Infiinity), then grabbed the arms or legs curves and moved them a couple of frames depending on what I need to offset. It should all still loop correctly as long as you keep the length of the curves the same.

AGoodFella

_adamturnbull said:

With cycles in the past when it comes to offsetting I've set all curves in the graph editor to loop (Cycle > Post Infinity / Pre Infiinity), then grabbed the arms or legs curves and moved them a couple of frames depending on what I need to offset. It should all still loop correctly as long as you keep the length of the curves the same.

Yeah, I did some quick tests and it worked out. Maybe, I was changing the changing the length of the curve before but I'm not sure. 

Thanks.

Hito

also remembered... if you did copy/paste keys or retimed keys on the time slider, you can end up with two keys on top of each other and that could manifest in the viewport as pops similar to what your seeing. In the graph editor those usually look like X shaped tangent handles. JP Keyframe Tools script can delete all non-integer keyframes, or you might have to zoom in close and delete the key that is incorrect.