Animating the main controller

LeeMeredith

Hello, I'm about to animate a scene of a character walking forward and then performing an action and I'm confused if I should animate the main controller translating forward or move the feet+ cog and work my way forwards. I've watched some tutorials where they move the main controller but I've also been specifically told to not animate it, does it actually matter? it seems like it would be so much easier to animate the main controller and then animate around it.



just a visual example incase I'm using the wrong name.

Thanks for any replies.

AGoodFella

Don't animate the main controller. Just use it to place your character where you want at the start and then use the COG to move the body. 

The "All" controller is useful if the director says, " hey could you move the animation back so the character starts from further back", you can then just move the All but animating it will pretty much screw you up.

There are instances where you could animate the All like in a walk cycle on the spot, you could animate the All to get it moving across the screen but in general, you avoid animating the main controller. I've made the same mistake before.

Arturow

Well it depends but I am on Agoodfella on this , is very rare that I animate that control. Just like an example, I did some extra work on 2 shots recently and 3 of the characters needed to be walking. I just made a walk cycle, cycle the whole movements to have like 100 frames of it and just animate the translation forward. I still don't recommend it lol ( this was just to populate a scene and they were just extras)

LeeMeredith

I see, thanks guys I'll stick to moving the cog and feet unless it's a cycle.

monster

For game animations, I animate the root controller quite often. But I put the animation in a layer and mute the layer when exporting to the game. This is really useful when doing a jump animation or a getting the feet to plant just right.

Some games need that animation though. In Unity you can use a "Root Motion" option to disable or enable root motion playback for gameplay. 

Rmunday

I was going to say in Unity I also animate the Root controller, generally do a loop and then time the translation. Unity has built in Foot IK as well so that helps make the cycle look even better. When doing a piece directly in Maya I don't use the root controller.