Matching the poses in a forward walk cycling

Support Animation and Rigging
#1

I think there are 3 ways to make a walk cycle in Blender.

The problem is that in the latest technique it is hard to close a loop without flicker as we cannot use “Copies the current pose”. Does anyone have any suggestions how to match the poses, the first contact pose and the 3rd (that is the same foot with the first one), in a forward walk cycling?

I can hardly wait for the features:

To be further tested:

  • Blending cycles
  • matching rotation for the bones as well.
#2

Yes, I’ve been frustrated with this in the past too. It’s an incredbly easy method to utilize, but this little factor can be a nuisance sometimes.

To solve it, Look at each animated bones IPO, set the extend mode to cyclic and really fine tune the IPO so that the first and last post transition smoothly. Usually setting each to cyclic will do the trick though.

#3

The only key that can’t be copied from first to last frame of the cycle is the key that sets the location along the axis of motion.

So, key that FIRST… ie.
Step one. Key the start position of the “offset” bone at the first frame for the axis of motion for location.
Step two. Spread the feet (IK) and key them each for the axis of motion for location.
Step three. Move forward in time (frames) to the last frame of the cycle.
Step four. Translate the “offset bone” X units along the axis of motion and key it for location.
Step five. Do the same with both feet.
Step six. Delete the unused location sub-keys set during this process. usually the second two of the three set for each primary key.

Now your armature should slide posed from the start to the end frame. From here out you can do anything you want, as long as you leave those first axis of motion keys set.

Final step is to copy all the keys EXCEPT the first axis of motion keys from the first to the last frame. Now your character will be in EXACTLY the same pose at the end of the cycle as at the start.

Oh! and don’t forget that your “cycle” can be more then just the single full step of a traditional walk cycle. You can animate as many steps as you like and then “repeat” them.

Pappy

#4

decius:
That works good. I didn’t notice that I can preview/make it using the cyclic extrapolation. Actually, I don’t need to use the offset bone for “just going straight”.

pappy:
Right. I can copy all the keys except forward momentum. e.g. Making the Mancandy walk to the -y, Copy every keys except the 3 sub keys, LocY of foot.L, foot.R and torso. And also one of them can be the offset bone. Using blender unit or placing the pivoting foot on the origin, I can easily do the math and get the exact LocYs. And Yes, double/triple set of steps will make it much more interesting.

Thank you Guys. The latest walk cycle technique may be covered on the Mancandy F.A.Q., I hope.

#5

Its a mirror copy of the poses. You need to select the bones you want to copy for the poses, copy them and then click on mirror copy. Make sure your bones have the same name, their only dirrerence being the .L & .R at the end of it eg. Hand.L and Hand.R AND also make sure the roll angle of the bones are reset otheriwse you can end up with weird results