Lesson Learnt 007 - Walk cycle methods

I was giving a lot of feedback, for class 1 students in Animation Mentor, on animating Vanilla Walks. Got inspired i had to do a practice on this. When do we actually attempt past assignments again right.

While animating i realised 2 things.
1. I it took way more time then i thought it will take me.
2. There are new mistakes that i encounter.

This are the stages in animating the Vanilla Walk using the Monsterball Rig from Animation Mentor.

There are basically 2 methods to animate a walk.
1. Animate the walk forward in respect to a stationary ground, leaving the Root Control untouched.
2. Animate the walk on the spot, as if walking on a treadmill, after which translate Root Control forward to create a walk on normal ground.

Both methods have its advantages and disadvantages.
1. Easier to animate together with other sequence or actions. Don't have to worry about the Root controller. Difficult to copy the exact displacement to the last frame to create a cycle.
2. Usually used in games where a cycle of a action is needed. Easier to create cycle because the exact displacements can be easily copied over. Need to ensure the displacement is the same as the displacement of Root Control to prevent sliding on the ground.

In this practice i used method 1. The mistake became apparent when i translated the Root Control. So the mistake is, while animating on the spot, the rear kick off was also done on the spot instead of constantly moving backwards. It can be clearly seen below.

It may not be visible playing in real time. But when the Root Control was translated the kick off foot slides forward.

Make sure in graph editor the curve looks like the image below. The foot kick off is from f12 - f15.

Instead of the image below, where the translation is almost none.

Make sure the Root Control translation curve looks like this.

And the feet will not slide anymore.

Animation Test 001 - 4 days Workflow

The 1st Animation Test was for another company, a dialogue shot, which was not really done well because of my inexperience. I will post that one up when i have the time. So the one here is actually the 2nd Animation Test for me. For this one, its a Body Mechanics shot (which i really love!), with a fixed Set given and general guidelines on what to animate, while i can use any Rig or additional Props and there is no limit on the shot's length.

So without revealing too much on the details of the test (it may be confidential), this post will focus on the workflow process.

I was given 3 days to do a Splined shot and 1 day to do Polish.

Day 1 (8 hrs):

Since Planning is one of the most important, or The Most important for some, i gave 1 out of 3 days to do this. After reading the requirements, the best part of planning came. Watching lots and lots of videos from Youtube. Thought about the Theme while watching, and slowly streamlined the videos i watched.

Downloaded all the videos that may be used for reference later. Went through them again for more inspiration to generate ideas.

The Theme i chose was Parkour style.

After soaking the mind with tons of actions and ideas, i sat myself down on a cosy chair and started imagining the shot. And watched more videos when necessary. Somewhere in there i decided to use a sword.


Drew some Thumbnails of the rough idea of the shot.

Took my own Reference videos for the actions that were missing from the previously gathered videos.
*Sorry about the messy house*

Using Grease Pencil in Maya i quickly Blocked out the actions to get the feel and rough timing of the shot with the set prepared.

Now i can download any Props or Rigs needed for the shot or customise the Rig if really neccessary. In this case i used Jules Rig from Animation Mentor, and a free sword Rig that Carles Vallbona from FB recommended. The sword Rig was done by Carlos Contreras. 

Day 2 (9hrs):

Its Blocking time! Using the Reference videos and the Planning i did the 1st Blocking in Stepped Tangent. Added in breakdowns where neccessary especially on spins. Adjusted the timing. At the same time tried out different camera angles or movement. 

Due to time constrain, i shortened a part from the beginning. I took out the kicking of the sword into the air spinning before grabbing it to throw. Thinking about it now, it may actually be a good idea, if not there will be too much sword spinning. Also took out the run before the jump onto the wall.

Day 3 (11hrs):

Added in anticipations, overshoots, eases, holds, and more breakdowns for Blocking Plus. Adjusted the timing again. Splined it in Auto Tangent, and done final tweak to movements like kick-off or grip. 

Day 4 (12hrs):

Last day for Polish, based on some feedback from the company after submitting what's done by day 3. The critique, which included adding back the run, was brutal, but it made the shot alot better. Also added in the stuff that i did not have time to complete before, like the landing on the ground and the sword wobbling on contact. Since there is a run, i also created some camera movement.

Overall it was a great experience. What i would improve is the Planning or more Thumbnails, so that my Blocking can be faster. With the time saved i could have done hair movement, add more facial expressions and some squash and stretch to the limbs, have another Overlapping Action pass and Path of Action pass.

AniMashUp Shot 001

AMU or AniMashUp was set up to practice on Body Mechanics Animation during Term Break of Animation Mentor. But these 2 weeks have 2 holidays, Christmas and New Year. So only managed to do 3 blocking shots, 1 of which has finished splining.

This is the 3rd shot, using Stella Rig.

I tweaked the hair to look like the reference video. And of course i don't need to animate the hair... :)

Reference video

Studied the reference in slow motion so much i feel like i can do the spin myself!

Blocking phase

The video seems jerky but actually its because i put it on auto tangent for the translating on ice while the rest is stepped tangent. I do this to have a better feel of the timing and spacing, so i can adjust it early in this phase.

Finished shot

Auto tangent all, added blocking pass, more in-betweens and break-downs, and also adjusted the graph to correct the popping.