Moho Animation Forum

I've recently purchased the animator survival kit from R. Williams. It is a piece of gold.
Anyway I've seen a not covered (or at last it is not fully covred) the problem of selection of the walk step length.

This is the problem:

A character stands on place A and wants to go to place B walking (maybe he stands still again or pick up something form the floor or there is a deskbar or what ever in position B).
How do you decide how many steps would the character should take to go from A to B?
If the distance from A to B is a long distance there is not problem at all. Just do a normal walk setp lenght and that's all. (sure?)
My problem comes when the distance from A to B is near to an small amount of integer "normal steps" but doesn't match it exactly.
What do you do usually? adjust the step length to fit exactly N times to the distance or do normal steps and adjust a final step longer or shorter?
Is is related to character personality only or there is a general rule?

Thanks
-G

In those cases I always adjust the last step to meet the destination. Right before or close to point B check where the foot is located. Then animate that foot land where you want it.

If you change the number of steps to get to point B so it is "exact" it could look odd... plus... it means your character has "ESP" or is "psychic" and can determine exactly how many steps to get to point B... it isn't "natural" in my opinion.

Animation Master has walk cycles with stride length to follow a path. It almost NEVER reaches the exact spot I want with both feet down at the same time. I always have to adjust that last step so it stops where I want it to.

These are just my opinions and observations.

-vern

It may help you to create a guide layer where you indicate the step positions for the whole walk, then animate your character accordingly.

Slowtiger: Yes, that's the correct way in any case. But define the steps lengths is the problem.

Vern: I've done some tests by my self and it is not obvious that a normal person do all the steps at the same length and just at the end do a small step to fit the total lenght of the path. I think that people (as they are not robots) continously adjust the step size to fit the total length. But the funny thing is that it is not done for the whole travel but just for the last three or two steps.
I think that it is interesting what do real people do because it can differ from one to other.
-G

You are probably right. It may depend on what the action is. If someone is walking along and notices an object then it would interupt their progress. If however they see something in the distance and intentionally walk towards it then they would alter their steps to reach it.

Robots... yes you are right. A person would alter the step distance if they have a "goal" to reach.

Interesting discussion.

-vern

Here's an idea.

Suppose you have a "walk action" that is a fixed stride length. You insert this action as a "copy" so you get the keys. Then on the last few frames before the character reaches the destination you can slide the keys to adjust the stride length so the feet stop or whatever, to transition to the next action. This would cause the character to "slow down" or "speed up" slightly, altering their forward motion naturally.

This would work well because the forward motion would not change. It wouldn't "break" the walk cycle it would just change the rate.

p.s. I really need to figure some sort of "scripted" stride length/action/path thingy. AS really needs that.

-vern

Please! don't script everything!

Slowing the walking speed is not the same than reduce the walk step length. Both are different approachings to the same target.

I don't mind to do the animation just "by hand" adjusting every step using the eye. In this cases I think that the best way is to place the marks in the floor and do the walk according to it, as slowtiger pointed out.
But where do I put the marks? That's the question.
-G

A good time saver once you get a good walk cycle done is to save it as an Action on a Master Character file. That way, you simply click to apply it in subsequent animation.

Mmm, I'm not real sure, but it seems like the rotation keyframes for all the leg/foot bones could be reduced by a percentage. So maybe by script you could cycle through perhaps the selected keyframes (I don't remember off hand if that is accessible) and overwrite the keyframes with a percentage of the original values.

But I have no idea how you'd figure out which direction is 'less rotation', and bone locking wouldn't work at all (or would have to be reset).

I think that you're not getting my problem or the basis of the question:

I don't want to make it automatic. I would like to give "life" to the walk so I don't want to find a magic recipe to do it automatically. I want to do it by hand. I want to know what does normal people do in real life to move from one point A to a point B with a fixed length. A character has a practical maximum and minimum step length that the animator can choose from. I know that the step length is not defined only by the distance to travel but the character personality, status or sex. Also I think that doing steps of different lengths makes the walk much more interesting and real than a mechanic fixed step length and a final adjusting small step.

See the diagram:


From A to B there are several options:
1) Give fixed walks and finnaly give a small step.
2) Give different steps length but finally reach exactly the target.
3) Calculate the fixed step length to exactly reach the target in a integer number of steps.

I think that case 1) or 3) are not done by humans. In my opinion (and here is where I would like to hear something from you and your experience) normal people changes its step length interactively according to the continuous feedback of the target distance. In the case that the target were moving the person can stumble with the target if the target moves quicker than the step cycle time.

But even for case 2) there are several solutions to the same problem (smaller steps at the beginning average in the middle and small again at the end, big ones at the beginning and reduce length as well as the target approximates, etc.). I would like to hear your experience on solve that kind of problem looking forward to plan the walk from A to B in a non mechanical way.
-G

I think it really all depends on the character's personality, goal, and environment. A timid character may tend to start slow, reach a medium speed, and then slow again the closer he gets to the destination. There's just a lot of personality involved. If he's distracted, there may be a pause in the cycle. Eager, he may increase his speed and do a little hop into the final position.

Very much a question of acting.

I think if you are doing it "by hand" then you should... uh... do it "by hand". Adjust the walk or pacing so it looks good to you, the director.

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I hadn't planned on "automating" the "whole thing". Just make the process of doing a walk cycle a bit easier. right now you have to go to a lot of effort to move the whole character forward while animating the feet and body. It's a pain to line up the feet at the right spot and determine the stride length.

I would like to script a way to have a walk cycle, either a "one off" or even a repeating cycle that can be assigned a stride length and move forward on screen without foot slippage. All without jumping through hoops to set up. Most animation software has this capability.

The result would be key framed so you can edit it to your hearts content... but the "hard parts" would be scripted just a bit to make it easier.

-vern

If your character has long legs, he'll have big steps...if small legs, shorter steps. Depends also what kind of walk he's doing - stroll, run, gait, stride, what kind of mood he's in...so you;d do an estimation of how many steps he should take, OR do a walk cycle, move the character across the ground and then end the walk cycle when he reaches his destination. I personally use the second method, start a walk cycle, then move the character across the screen, making sure there's no slide on the feet coming into contact with the ground, and when he reaches his destination, I end the walk cycle, coming into a stop.