Tweening my walk cycle...

[Theeph]

Hi all. Having some drama with a walk cycle for a character.

Trying to make it "sashay" as it walks.

I usually have a pain with the intermediary steps, because it seems counter intuative... no matter how many movies of walking I watch I can never seem to get it down pat. Anyway, I have the extremes here, and I'm just looking for some ideas to shoe horn in between.

Thanks.

[Penguinx]

It'd be easier to tell what transitions were needed if it were an animated gif. Do you have that capability? If not, I can throw it together for you...

[Theeph]

Thanks for replying.

I am really ashamed of this anim. It makes me seasick... but anyway. Apoligies.

[Penguinx]

I think you might be trying to go too far too quick with this one. I think the way her left hand bounces around is pretty distracting as is. Simplify the shoulder/hips/breasts some. Too many things are hopping around.

It's a good attempt, so don't get discouraged!

[Alynn]

Dont mind me, it's the first thing that came to mind but...

Is she doing the riverdance?

The thing I've noticed with my own animations, is that it is easier to start at one extreme and move to the other (IE tween as you go, even though technically you aren't tweening) this actually helps make the animation smoother than trying to make a animation start at one point, and end at another while both the start and stop animations are already finished.

[Theeph]

Thanks for replies.

@ Penguinx - Cheers for encouragement. Will simplify first and get the annimation happening. Hopefully won't have to take all the detail out cause I like it and also I have all sorts of funky kung fu already animated... we shall see.

@ Alynn - lol. Riverdance. Actually, I was playing Nine Inch Nails at the time, and she danced to that too. I think maybe I'll release it as some sort of incipid, epilepsy inducing eye toy. Heh. Anyway - will start from scratch, simplyfying like Penguinx said, and follow your annimation approach. I know it isn't tweening too, but I couldn't think of a better blanket term. "Interim frames" sounds... bleah.

Cheers again.

[Penguinx]

Actually, you were right the first time. Tweening comes from inbetweening and is an old school, traditional animation term. Newer programs that do automatic tweening have adopted the term, sure, but it existed well before the likes of 3D and vector animation programs.

I didn't mean you needed to simplify the design (though simpler designs and smaller resolutions tend to help, really). I just meant the amount of objects bouncing around during the walkcycle could be toned down till you get your basic stride figured out. Start with the sticks, lay the pixels over. That sort of thing.

You can draw in the style you're aiming for well enough; it's just a matter of getting the animation right first and throwing the art at it second, I think. Doing both at once might be biting off more than one can chew.

[Theeph]

Ahh cheers for the clarification and response Penguinx. Hmm. Cool to be (somewhat accidentally) right about tweening.

I mucked about a bit more and I'm a fraction happier with the result. Ie, not too embarassed to post it.



Yup. More than I can chew, that's my issue all over. Anyway that's a last ditch effort for some improvement tonight before I retire. I'll get to it fresh tomorrow, and strip it back to teh sticks. Thanks again for crit and help!

[Penguinx]

Definitely looking better! There's a slight pause when she brings her right foot forward. Is that just the way the gif was saved? Eliminating that pause would help it flow a lot better.

[Candall]

Keep in mind that during a walk cycle, both feet should never be flat on the ground at the same time.

[The Ivy]

Aha!

6 frames, deleted the 2 standing frames and the repeated first frame at the end.



She's starting to look like she's walking, although there are a few things that could be a bit more consistent.  The size of her belt buckle changes a lot, for example.  Also, too much of her jeans show overtop of her hands on the extremes.  I also think her head moves too much from side to side.  Think of a model on the runway...they look very determined (and scary), and the only head movement is up and down.

Otherwise, I think it's a perfectly functional animation.  I'd like to see some hair bounce, too, like it moves up when she's stepping down and down when she's stepping up (does that make sense?).

Good luck!

[Theeph]

Thanks all for the great responses! 

@ Penguinx - Thanks and yep. That was my 2 in the morning idiocy that saved it incorrectly.

@ Candall - Cheers, will remember it. I usually fall into that hole, and given Ivy's edit, I see it makes it look teh suck.

@ The Ivy - Thank you stacks for the edit. Actually starting to look like what I want. I shall work on consistancy. I think part of the problem was I made the sprite from a seeries of sketches on different bits of paper. I'll do them all together next time. And yeah, I agree about the head. I was working from a runway reference movie I nabbed from YouTube, but at that hour last night the lazy-flip-and-reshade option sounded a whole lot more attractive.

I'll hit this in an hour or so and post my results. Thanks again all.

EDIT: Ok, not too major. Lotsa problems still there, but I fixed the head wavy thing, made one of the arms swing wider and look less noodle-like, redid the crazed "Breast Explosion" on some of the frames, and cleaned up the hip part a tiny bit. Have plans for the hair and finer details but I want it to get more... walky first...

[LGM]

Does she ever open her legs when she walks? I bet she chaffs like crazy.

[Theeph]

Does she ever open her legs when she walks? I bet she chaffs like crazy.

I bet it canes. But that's actually consistant with my reference vid. No legs apart at all.

Maybe my next task should be a Big Blue Cup item full of anesthetic cream.

Edited:
----------

Aiiet. No more chafing. Fixed silly shading. Got a little hair bobble. Looking a little bit more walksome.

[n3tgraph]

Hahaha, I like this!

A lot of improvement! You'll get there eventually!!

My crits:
- She's swaying like a mad dog. Try walking sexy yourself. I'm sure you won't sway your hips like that 

As for her boobies. They bounce off to every corner very harsh! When walking like this boobies should smoothly bounce up and down and up and down...and....up.........and......sexy and...

* n3tgraph faints

[Theeph]

LOL n3tgraph.

There is no way I'm trying to emulate that walk myself. Although on the amusing side, I just asked my wife to, and she bounced a coke can off the back of my head. XD

But will try reducing sway and increasing the up-down. Gotcha.

[Haddas]

Try to convince her to do it. Film it, and then rotoscope it. and apply that to the walkcycle.

Take these as an example:



They aren't of the best quality but they should get the point across nicely.

I used Adobe Imageready

[ThreeOhFour]

Hi. I love the static images. LOVE. I think the exagerated-ness of her walk is absolutely fantastic - the way you've got bits going everywhere is really cool.

I just don't think it looks like she's walking that much. Bits are moving around, but we need some smoothness here. Seeing as I absolutely HATE doing walkcycles, and am a glutton for punishment, I decided to show you and example of what I mean. Note - I'm not claiming my version is better, I'm just giving out ideas of how smooth I think it should be.

Start off with Miss Basic Image. I'm not going for sexy here - just demonstration, so plain Jane should do this.



Innocent, isn't she? Ok, so now we've got our image, lets get those legs moving!!!



Beaut! Just what is needed for walking! Legs. Ok, so I'm feeling a bit silly. Stick with me!



Add "Chest Fluctuations" (that's not a proper term). This is a less exagerrated version, but still ...erm... bouncy...



Who could forget those hips? Mmm... hips... Not so innocent now, is she?



Now cross those legs over a bit, catwalk model style.

Here ends the example.

Yeah, I know she needs and extra frame. But I'm lazy and gave up doing more, because 5 steps is too many to have in a crappy example like this anyway! What was I thinking???

She's still not too smooth - more frames and faster animation will do that. But to tell you the truth, each example is only 3 frames - then those three flipped and copied, so it isn't that much drawing. Lemme know what you think.

And Haddas... wow. I'm gonna have to try animation like that one day. So smooth!

And yeah, n3tgraph is right. They are up and down and up and..... no I mean maybe a little less exagerated on the hips and chest side would help. But the exageration is still cool.

Peace.

[Theeph]

Wow.

First thanks to Haddas for the rotoscoping tip. Having a little trouble doing it to the sashay because of the zoom factor. (Ie. chick walking towards me gets bigger but sprite needs to stay the same.) However I am totally using that technique for some of the other animations I've got hidden away for her and others. ^_^

A huge thanks to Ben304 for the amazingly helpful walking tute and crit. That is going to be wildly useful. I'm gonna take some time to animate the walk properly now. I've been playing around swapping torso and legs and getting some ok results so with your ideas I should be able to come up with something I'm happy with. *gives you the internet*

Anyway, here's another char I've been working on to stop myself from burning out trying to get Amy to get her walk on.



Ok. Off to scribble some pencil versions of those new footsteps. A huge thank you to everyone once again. This is really helpful.

[ThreeOhFour]

Glad you like it. Now that I come back and look at the animation, I realise I should have put a bit more effort in. But like I said, I'm lazy.

I couldn't imagine doing my animation on paper first. I do it all frame by frame in paint and then use the Windows picture viewer thing to view each frame, so I can click the next button repeatedly to get an idea of how its looking.

And perhaps if you wanted to solve the person getting closer problem, you might use a treadmill? Just a thought...