i’ve set up one of my character’s with a walk animation, and i was wondering if there was a way to loop the animation, while moving him forward, or would i have to loop the animation manually?
thanks in advance
i’m working through this one myself
once you have created the walk cycle in the action editor, open the nla editor and add it as an action strip. you can set the end frame for the animation cycle and repeat the animation using the transform properties of the strip (press ‘N’ key when you have selected the strip)
there is a very easy to follow tutorial on youtube that ward7299 made. look for the most recent walk cycle tutorial he did and it should be fairly easy to follow
coox
ok, i added an action script, but my character stays stationary, how can i loop the action regardless of the location?
when you have loaded the action cycle as an action strip in the nla, select the strip (it should turn yellow) and press the N key. the panel that pops up is the transform properties for the strip. find the arrow bar that says “(re)peat: 0.00”. repeat it as many times as you need for your animation. if you get any screen stuttering (i.e. duplicate screens that seem to interrupt the cycle when it repeats) the action end value needs to be adjusted. doing these couple of things will have the cycle repeating as needed with the character walking in place.
once you have done that, tab back to object mode and add a curve>path object. select the path object and tab into edit mode. adjust the vertices as needed (scale, move, etc.) while in edit mode. the path will have arrows in edit mode indicating direction. it is important that the first vertex is in the same location as the character’s armature object center. once you have the path as needed tab back to object mode, select the character’s armature and rotate the character’s armature (in object mode, not pose mode) to match the orientation of the direction of the start of the path. then with the armature selected in object mode, shift select the path and parent (ctrl-p). choose “follow path”. now when you play the animation, the character should follow the path that you created and edited.
are you using a stride bone or an animated master bone or neither?
also, the path’s ipo curve by default is on 100 frames. if you want the character to take longer or shorter than 100 frames to walk the path, open the ipo editor and move the end vertex accordingly.
also, the scale of the walk cycle will most likely need to be adjusted. it is located in the transform properties of the action strip in the nla editor next to where you adjusted th peat:0.00 value and it effects how fast the key frames are played…lower the value to move faster, raise to move slower.
hope this helps
coox
thank you for your very useful instructions, sadly i figured it out before you posted but thank you all the same.
have you considered making a proper tutorial for this?