Animating a mechwarrior walk cycle

Hello,

I’m currently working on making a Mechwarrior walk cycle (chicken walker) and am wondering how I should go about animating the toes colliding with the ground/springing back to a downward angle while in the air. Is there a way to do it other than key framing? I was trying to see if it was possible to turn the toe bones/meshes into rigid bodies and have them collide with a plane (the ground) but couldn’t figure it out. Anyway, I’m open to any suggestions. I’ve attached the blend file but for some reason am unable to upload my material files :frowning: Currently the legs are animated but the toes are not. The rig is also currently using Auto IK.


Mech_RunCycle.blend (751 KB)

Looks almost like a low-poly timber wolf, or a poor excuse for a mad dog…

I looked at your file, and yes there is a way to do the toes without key framing, but it’s really advanced rigging. Physics/Rigid Bodies won’t get you there, as far as I know. There is a Floor constraint, that supposed to stop objects passing thru other objects, maybe try that. I’ve never had any luck with it.

Even key framing the toes, they will tend to pass thru the floor, because of how blender evaluates the animation between the key frames.

If you’d like to learn more, look for tutorials on rigging an IK leg/foot. The foot part won’t matter as much as understanding how the leg works. Your mech’s leg is just backwards from a human’s, so it’s the same thing really. It might help you to learn more…

Randy

Haha, I guess it’s kind of a hybrid… I haven’t played MW2 in forever (for obvious reasons) but loved the crap outa that game. So I thought I might try to make something based off those fond memories. Thanks for checking out my file, I’ll definitely look into the floor constraint and rigging.

Using an Ik constraint for the feet would be your best bet, since they simulate having a floor without having the character interact with an actual floor.