Advice to Improve Walk Cycle ?
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Hi people,
I am a student, studying Games Development, and I'm currently working in animation for a project. I would like to ask for an advice from any artist out there who is familiar with 3D Animation(Maya).
I am not very familiar with Animation, fairly new to the field, but I'm more experienced with Programming and Rigging.
I'm trying to make a walk cycle for low poly meshes which have abstract topology. I'm using the basic techniques like tweaking the Translation/Rotation of my NURB Controls, Graph Editor, Dope Sheet and Editable Motion Trail. The problem is that the animations always look too stiff, no matter how much I try to polish them. We aim for a realistic approach.
I'm wondering if there are any techniques that can help me polish them in a more advanced level and make the animations look more fluid? Any advice is very appreciated and also any critique to improve is very welcome.
PS. Please ignore the fact that the NURB controls looks displaced. The reason is because I have a secondary rig in the scene that I imitate its joints animation to this one through a script.
Thank you.
I am a student, studying Games Development, and I'm currently working in animation for a project. I would like to ask for an advice from any artist out there who is familiar with 3D Animation(Maya).
I am not very familiar with Animation, fairly new to the field, but I'm more experienced with Programming and Rigging.
I'm trying to make a walk cycle for low poly meshes which have abstract topology. I'm using the basic techniques like tweaking the Translation/Rotation of my NURB Controls, Graph Editor, Dope Sheet and Editable Motion Trail. The problem is that the animations always look too stiff, no matter how much I try to polish them. We aim for a realistic approach.
I'm wondering if there are any techniques that can help me polish them in a more advanced level and make the animations look more fluid? Any advice is very appreciated and also any critique to improve is very welcome.
PS. Please ignore the fact that the NURB controls looks displaced. The reason is because I have a secondary rig in the scene that I imitate its joints animation to this one through a script.
Thank you.
Replies
https://syncsketch.com/
- I'm not sure, but I think it's a bit too slow for just a generic walk. A generic walk will take place over between 24-30ish frames on average. Maybe more, maybe less. Yours seems to be about 40 for two steps. I could be wrong as frames has never been my specialty, but yeah, it seems too slow.
- Another reason your walk doesn't feel realistic are the feet are sliding when they are coming back. See the foot arch in the back part of the foot: http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/cse464/12wi/assignments/assignment_4/images/contact_method.jpg , that is something yours is missing.
- Your up and down is too much. There's a lot of needless bend there, so try and minimise that a bit. However, it's all at the right timing, so well done there.
- There's no weight transference left and right on the feet using your COG control.
- There's no movement on the shoulder controls. Our arms don't move independently, there is always some movement from the torso.
- There's no overlap. Having the hands hang out front for a couple of frames more when the feet go back goes a long way in adding realism. Not just in the hands and feet movement, but in the whole body. Nothing happens at exactly the right time aha.
- When your arms go back, they just stop moving something. They have bend the whole time going back and then there's none. A little bit more movement on the wrist going backwards could go a long way.
So that's just some quick feedback! Keep it up!
But still I'm gonna consider your advices and try to improve it! Also, do you think the tools I'm using are sufficient? (graph editor/dope sheet, and the others mentioned above) or can you recommend anything else that I'm probably not aware of?
And no worries! The tools your using are fine and the same tools that all animators use!