3D Walk Cycle WIP/Critique

[Arice7081]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcYb5...ature=youtu.be

First of all, hello everyone, new user here. This is my first time animating anything in 3D in quite a long time. I've experimented a lot with what I want to do with my life and I made a full circle back to 3D and now I'm ready to learn it.

In any case, this is just a simple walk I made with a pre rigged character. I only did the animation. Currently, his legs, arms, and body moves as he walks. (I should mention his body also moves side to side, it's subtle.)

This is by no means finished, and I can think of several things that still need movement to really bring this guy to life. I'm posting this here now though because I want a simple critique on what is here so far, to see if I'm going in the right direction or not in making this character lifelike.

I will continue to work on this and post updates as I go along. Right now I'm rendering these out as images and then making it a movie file with video editing software. If there are any other rendering techniques I should know about that'd be helpful too

Thanks in advance for taking the time to read this.

[Arice7081]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5YR_...ature=youtu.be

I redid the walk cycle, this time adding a lot more life to it. The render didn't come out as nicely as I thought. I'm still trying to configure my render settings.

[WildDUcK]

Your walkcycle look a bit like a robot, i think you need to smooth that.
In addition, i think you should take references for the main "Keys" of a classic walkcycle.
for example :
For me the body moves too much up and down, the head move too much, the arms are not rotating from the shoulders and the hands go too far in front. (Would be good to had some wrist and body twist). Good luck !!

[Arice7081]

Thanks for the input. I'm taking your advice into consideration and going to remake the cycle from scratch to ingrain the process in my brain.

Truth bet told, the second walk cycle was supposed to be more exaggerated, but there are still problems with it being life like.

I'll have a new version up of it within a day or so.

[Tank[NL]]

take a look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=occFkFbl3ms

the problem with you walk cycle is that it's very static and you almost ignore the hips and shoulders. take a good look at the video i linked. it should give you a clear idea of what im talking about.

[Arice7081]

Hmm, the video you linked looks so smooth. Any general tips you can provide (I'm using Maya) for removing the wooden movement?

[iikii]

Hi, you need to apply the 12 principles of animation to your walk cycle such as ease in/out, squash effects, weights. It's not really the software problem

Then it also seem like you are animating in linear mode..

[Arice7081]

I have it set to auto right now. I'm not too sure which is best for what situation right now.

But yeah, sometimes I'm just not sure when it's me, or when it's something that the program can do that I'm not aware of. I'll have to reconsult the 12 principles, thanks for that reminder.

[Arice7081]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOjugx3pUyU

Alright, this is another walk cycle, this time using the MooM character model and rig. I like how this one turned out, though I know it's far from perfect.

EDIT: Looking at it, it seems to be moving faster than it did when I played it back in Maya. I must have messed something up in Final Cut when exporting the image sequence to a movie.

[benne]

You are not using the right curves. Try to set up the big poses first (primary motion) and then filling the gabs with the secondary motion. Then you go in the curve editor/graph editor (dont know what its called in maya) make sure every curve is smooth and simple and delete keys that are not necessary. try to keep the keys to the minimum or you'll have a hard time adjustig them all.

And first of all you should look at some reference videos. The biggest thing you are lacking is knowing how the motion goes in parts of the body.
For instance: when you look at the trajectory of a hand it should go in a 8-shaped curve while in your walkcycle its just a sweep. I think you could make a better walkcycle from your last one by just adding those subtle movements

Good luck

[Arice7081]

Would you recommend "blocking" the animation in stepped mode first?

[Arice7081]

Hello, it's been a while since I posted but I'm still working on new animations. I have a few that I've made that I haven't posted yet.

I have a question regarding the the MooM rig I'm using.

I downloaded the rig from here: http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/do...-0-3-by-ramtin

The problem I'm having with it, is when I go to copy motion from one joint to the joint on the opposite side, certain joints (in this case, the upper arms) don't move in the same way. If I copy one set of joints from the upper arm to the other side, it appears to move in the complete reverse direction. I just thought I had to change the negative values to positive, but it just contorts it further. Is this an error in the rig, or am I missing something?

[aaron2]

Loved it
Great job done mate..will love to see more from you