Trouble animating through 3d space

LeeMeredith

Hello, I've spent the majority of my time learning to do cycles but now I have to animate a scene of a character walking and running. I can not wrap my head around how to plan out the run so it translates through the world.

I've tried blocking in the entire run and walk in stepped mode, I converted to spline and the walk was fine after clean up but the run had issues with it going backwards and forwards at random times, I checked the Y curve (3ds max) and it was full of keys at different heights, deleting them to get a linear movement completely destroyed the foot placements.

I'm at a complete loss how to do this, I've tried finding tutorials but all I can find is info about cycles but I need to do an actual scene of running from A to B with actions in-between so I cant just cycle it.

Any help such as a video tutorial or your own advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Hito

Yeah it's a tough one. I don't know how others approach it in features and what not. Best I can figure is put the loop on a path, that gives you a good block out. then go through and  plant the feet with constraints or key-frames, adjust the turns etc. Would love to hear how other people handle this as well.

LeeMeredith

@Hito   I already have the rest of the animation working well (I did it in segments) would creating a loop for the walk break those? the walk/run is right at the start and then the climb/jump etc happens. I'm wondering if I could use CAT rig layers to get it working but I'll have to look into it. Thanks for the reply.

Hito

Depends on what the main show is, if the walk/run is just a lead-in for the climb/jump; then a couple steps is all you need, I'd just add some frames at the beginning and key the lead-in. If the meat of the anim is the Walk/Run, I'd try using Layers and blend it into the other part. I don't know much about CAT though, can't help much with specifics.

LeeMeredith

@Hito It has a pretty long walk/run up, I'll look up layer blending thanks.

slipsius

So, how I usually go about it is I`ll animate a box going through space. It helps me focus on the timing. I do a bit of rotation in the box, just to show motives, but its a box. so there really isnt much to it. I`ll usually do the translation first, then the rotation. 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/nvwadqj4in45on0/Ogre_Run_Layout.mov?dl=0

after the box, I animate my characters root to that box. only the root though. As you can see in the links below, you can already tell what the intentions are.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xbrkp6t7mmlt59s/Ogre_Run_Layout1.mov?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/c68gt1ocqffoizg/Ogre_Run_Layout3.mov?dl=0

Then, I go in and start doing the major poses. the contact poses. the mid air poses. Nothing too fancy.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ivnh29rd0y1hlou/RoughBlocking.mov?dl=0

From there I go in and start fleshing it out more. adjust posing and timing if need be. tweaks and polish and all that. This next link is an old playblast, before polish, and unfinished. I dont seem to have a more recent video on my dropbox. 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6kbeijs5wqqxfwo/blast27.mov?dl=0

So here are the controls on the character.  the layout control, the circle at the bottom, moves the entire character, so thats what i animated to go along with the box. I should note that while i added rotation to my box, I didn't add the rotation to this control. In one of my videos I did, but I later took those out, as I was still learning the process. Adding the rotation creates more work for you later on, counter animating everything. The box rotation will just help with your posing once you get to that step

https://www.dropbox.com/s/494nqcp2s2vs8fi/Ogre_Controls.JPG?dl=0


This is how I personally do it. But, it's what works for me. It's not the right or wrong way of doing it. It works for me, so for me, it's right. others may have a better way of going about it that you may like better. But like you, i had trouble with the character going across the space. Once I started doing the box thing, and focusing on the box's timing, it made things way way easier for me.

LeeMeredith

@slipsius thanks a lot for the detailed reply, I love your workflow, I will definitely use it as my timer from now, bit late to restart this project but every project from now on will use it. Really appreciate it.