Best approach for animating a timed movement (walk, run) in space?

nE0n1nja

Hey guys, I started animating a rat which is supposed to walk quickly to a certain point in the scene, then stop, then walk some more in another direction, then turn around and quickly run away. I've done a rough animation of the movement path and timing with a proxy geo and now I want to animate the actual rat. My first try was to just move the Root control to the desired location and then animate the legs according to that, but it's pretty difficult since the root is constantly moving forward and I'm having trouble matching the legs, doing a proper walk cycle etc...

So how would you approach animating something like this?

Alex_J

i don't know of any other way to do it. You could blockout the legs movement and then copy the keys from that to the root so that you can more easily adjust roots movement to be in sync with the legs.

nE0n1nja

Okay, thanks! I had a thought, maybe I could do a walk cycle in place, then use the world offset control to bring the rat to the desired location and adjust the speed of the walk cycle accordingly in order to avoid sliding. Can't try it until Monday, but seems like an easier way, in my head at least   

Eric Chadwick

One trick is to parent a temporary camera to the root’s planar movement (minus up axis), so it follows the character, and the character through the camera looks like it’s static in space. Then use it to animate “in place”.

Eric Chadwick

This sounds like a non-interactive animation, so you don’t have to work within the constraints of walk cycles and automated blending. 

Instead, this is a performance, you’re communicating the rat’s internal mental state through what it is doing.

You’ll also want to make sure the feet are connecting with the floor, not just skating.

So animating the root motion is very important, and animating the rest of the body to match it is also essential.

kanga

Animate the walk cycle along with any other repetitive movements of your beast. Learn how to use the action editor in Blender. You can animate on top of any movement non destructively. Save you loads of time and effort in the end. There are a lot of tutes on this stuff.

nE0n1nja

Thanks guys.

Eric Chadwick said:

This sounds like a non-interactive animation, so you don’t have to work within the constraints of walk cycles and automated blending. 

Instead, this is a performance, you’re communicating the rat’s internal mental state through what it is doing.

You’ll also want to make sure the feet are connecting with the floor, not just skating.

So animating the root motion is very important, and animating the rest of the body to match it is also essential.

Yes, seems like that would be it. It's just that there would be a lot of walking. Wanted to use a cycle for the walks, runs etc.

kanga said:

Animate the walk cycle along with any other repetitive movements of your beast. Learn how to use the action editor in Blender. You can animate on top of any movement non destructively. Save you loads of time and effort in the end. There are a lot of tutes on this stuff.

Using Maya, is there something similar? The Time Editor maybe?

Alex_J

in maya you can use animation layers you work additively. its in same tab as regular modeling layers.