How do I get my arcs?

Kawe

So, I'm kind of new to animation.. but one thing I know is that no one walks like this (or at least I don't think I do):



I've been playing around but I cant get it to make a nice arcing motion... unless I go and keyframe every frame and I was hoping to not have to do that.

Technically this isn't a problem since my school project uses a really zoomed out camera but it'd be nice to know how to get it right.

Uh, I'm using Motionbuilder but I assume it is the same in all other programs. I was assuming this was caused by IK stuffs but I don't really know how to work that magic in MB.

jipe

In real basic terms, you should only need 3 keys to define an arc if you're working in splines. Key --> primary breakdown --> key. You'll probably want two secondary breakdowns to define the arc and spacing more, so that's 5 keys.

Depending how fast the action is or how specific it needs to be, you may end up having to key every frame. The computer is really, really dumb and sometimes you just have to pretend it's 2d animation. You probably want to keep your keys pretty clean until the blocking/general idea is approved, but once you're trying to polish, anything's fair game. Whatever it takes to get the motion.

And with a walk, depending on the rig, at some point you have the heel-peel coming up and then you'll want to switch over to one of the other foot controls for the passing position and contact position. I try to key that change over a single frame, otherwise it gets messy quickly (too many controls affecting the rotation/position of the foot).

Kawe

Thanks for the reply.

Just to describe what I did better. Basically I just positioned the feet over 3 keys by fiddling with the foot control. And they produce those awful straight lines. If I add a key inbetween those to make it closer to an arc it still goes in a straight line. For evrything else like hands/arms they go in arcs when I do it like that.

And I'm just using a basic Motionbuilder rig.

So should I take it that this is common and I should expect to set all keyframes if I really want my arcs?

jipe

Are you using linear interpolation for your keyframes? What do the foot control translates look like in the graph editor?

Slum

yeah, definitely just looks like you're not using the right interpolation.