Moho Animation Forum

I have a feeling the answer is no, but I'll go ahead and ask anyway. So I'm working on a building a walk cycle action for one of my characters. It would be wonderful if I didn't have to build it again for each of my many other characters. Here's the thing: the first guy I ever built, well, each skeleton/bone layer is a duplicate of that for all the other characters. Granted, the bones may have been slightly rearranged on the woman, but the dudes at least, only their vectors were altered to create new characters.

Given this info, is it possible to take the walk cycle I'm working on now, and once done, paste it into each other character's bone layer, instead of rebuilding the cycle for each character?

Vern's save bone animation script.

Ah. I'll search for that.

Oh and while we're at it, I did something dumb and created the cycle in the main timeline instead of the action timeline. . .is there way to paste those keys from the main to the action? copy/paste from the timeline controls doesn't work, copy/paste from the edit menu doesn't work. . .can't think of other ideas.

same way as dropping the action to the time line , but in reverse.
Might take a while to get that, but keep trying, use the buttons at the top of the actions panel.

I'd like to hijack my own thread and make it more about walk cycles, if I could.

So I have a few more questions:

Regarding looping the cycle: is it better to loop it as part of the action itself, or in the main timeline? It seems like if you did it as part of the action, it wouldn't stop if you put a keyframe in the main timeline (what I mean is, if the action is on the bone layer of a character and he's walking, and you put a key in the main timeline of him standing still after several cycles, it wouldn't be acknowledged) seems like it would work better to cycle/loop on the main timeline.

Also, coming out of the cycle to, say a dead stand still. I get this to work, but it appears it's simply taking the last cycle frame and then "cutting" to the stand still keyframe, instead of interpolating the motion between whatever cycle frame is the last last one before he stops moving, and the standing pose. It doesn't look that bad, but it could be better.

I'm also a little hazy on how the cycling (not the walk cycle, the repetition cycle) should be set up. I read in another thread that you need an extra key for cycling. . .one more than you actually intend to use, just for the cycle command. In my head, it seems like, say, in a 13 frame animation that should loop, where 1 and 13 are the same pose, that 12 would be the cycle key. . .cause after twelve it's going "back" to 1/13, as the 1/13 pose would be the next image in the animation sequence. But you guys say this is not so? That it should be frame 13 where you cycle, if 1 and 13 are the same? That 13 essentially gets "eaten", that is, doesn't count as part of the animation. trying to make sure the animation doesn't use the same image twice (11, 12, 13, 1, 2, etc.) is what I'm getting at. Do I understand this correctly? That when it hits the cycle frame, it doesn't use it?

Oh yeah, the Dreaded Cycle Count Question.

I plan a cycle of 12 frames. This means that frame #1 and #13 are identical, and #13 is set to "cycle 12 # back".

If #13 was included in the cycle, I'd get 2 identical frames, thus stopping the movement at that point.

So far it worked for me, but I never found out wether AS actually shows #1 or #13 - it uses both as reference for interpolation.

Yup, watch out for that repeated frame, don't include it in any cycle, otherwise just do what ever you feel like, it should work either way.

Wait wait. . .so I DO want a 13, with the cycle interpolation selected? I am now confused because one of you said I was essentially right, the other says "not to include it" (though I may be misinterpreting)

Wait. . .I bet when you say "included IN the cycle" you mean, "not having the cycle interpolation command on it". . .right?

For instance, if frame 1 is a contact pose, 13 should also be a contact, right?

Something else I just thought of. . .instead of using bone locking, I may use layer translation for the "bounce" during the walk cycle (if they bounce at all. . .though the way my guys are built, it's pretty much impossible to have all the correct leg/foot movements and keep their feet on the same vertical plane during the cycle without some bounce. I know the bounce is part of the walk cycle according to traditional animation, but in real life, it's very slight and I may not miss it in my piece)

So I tried this before, and since there's already layer translation vertically (and consequently, horizontally he's stuck in place) on all the pose keys for the cycle, when I want to use layer translation to move my guy horizontally across the screen (I create the cycle with him walking in place, and then translate the layer to actually move him), he doesn't move until the last translation key on the cycle, and then warps to wherever I put him on the screen.

As I said: frame #1 and #13 are identical - whatever pose it is. Additionally I should mention that you will need a keyframe at these two positions in every timeline of the cycle.

For the vertical bounce I use the bone translation of the character's root bone. This way I have the layer translate timeline completely free for any placement keys. I posted my recipe for walk cycles some time ago here: viewtopic.php?t=9448

Got it. But if the identical first and last frame is built into the action, every time I insert it into the main timeline, the duped frames will already be there, right?

Very clever on the bone translation. If I decide to bounce, I will try that. I wish I'd found your recipe earlier. I based mine off the idelworm tutorial, with much less exaggeration to the movements (cause NO ONE walks like that).

I don't know about actions, but it seems that an action only holds the frames #1 - #12 in order to do a complete cycle. I think if you first create your normal cycle #1 - #13, then create keys at #12, you should get the correct result.

I'll have to play with this, then.

I've created the cycle based on the four poses in the tutorial I mentioned. So it starts with a contact, and every four frames (this isn't finalized, but it's how I have it now) I have a key with the next pose, all the way until the contact pose at frame 1 is reached through the logical movement of the legs. So that last frame is a contact pose, same as frame 1. It's on this frame that I put the cycle command, telling it go back the relative number of frames to reach 1. Spacing of keys is same throughout (4 frames apart) including the last frame. Is this the right methodology?

OK gang, I think I have the walk down (I'll post soon).

NOW, I need a "run cycle". Tutorials have not made themselves readily available to me. Anyone have any leads on a free running tutorial? Even a gif I could mimic would be fine. Thanks.

Try this Wink Tutorial by DK http://www.wienertoonz.com/buck/BUCKRUN.htm