Change Character's Starting Position for Walk Cycle

dianacin · Post by **dianacin** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 9:02 pm

I searched the forum for an answer to this question but didn't find it. I guess I'm doing something wrong.

I rigged a character for a walk cycle and he treadmill walks fine. I added a background, etc to animate him walking from one side of the screen to the other. On frame one I use the translate bone tool to move him to his starting position. All is well until I move the timeline to the endpoint. The character immediately snaps back to the middle of the screen resuming his position before I moved him to one side. I've tried to just setup the keyframes anyway. The first frame has him where I placed him but he simply zips across to the middle of the screen again. So the only workaround becomes to leave the character where he is and move the camera (and all the background elements) into position.

At first I thought this was just the way AS worked, but then I tried it on Winsor (who is fully rigged and animated) and he could be moved just fine. The only difference I could see is I have keyframes on frame one and Winsor doesn't.

What am I doing wrong? Thanks in advance.

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 3:17 am

Obviously you have created some keys in wrong places. Check your character's root layer timeline for layer transformation keys and erase them.

I recommend against the use of translate bone for placing a character. It's much easier done with the translate layer tool because it shows you a separate timeline.

I wrote up my recipe for walk cycles here: viewtopic.php?t=9448&highlight=walk+cycle%2A

chucky · Post by **chucky** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 3:25 am

It would be nice to see some visuals to go with the recipe Slowtiger.
After all this is a visual medium with a visual user interface.

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 4:57 am

Yeah, nice. At that time I was working on a series and was not allowed to show any of the material around. I would need to re-create the walk cycle with one of my own characters, and record some of the creation with a screen recorder which I don't have any.

dianacin · Post by **dianacin** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 11:15 am

Thank you, slowtiger.

I knew there was something hinky about the bone translation, I just didn't know what. Winsor's root bone doesn't move so that's why the translate bone tool can move him with no adverse effects. Unless I'm missing something it appears you can't move a character with the translate bone tool AT ALL unless the root bone has no keys already. It was a simple thing that tripped me up. Thanks again.