Moho Forum

So this is my first every quadraped/ insect/ ant walk/ forward walk ever so I definitely need some help out. After I rendered it, I noticed he had some goofy head and arm movements, but ignore all that

What I need help with is the walk. I have no clue what an ant is suppose to walk like, but also because he is not using all 6 of his legs/arms I really don't know how to make a convincing four legged two armed ant walk....

Here is what I got so far



Let me know what you think!

Hmmm. If you think about it, the ant would find it very difficult to walk like this. It's more productive to think "how many legs does the ant need to be stable?", and the answer is 3. So for each stage of the ant's walk, he would move just one leg forward. Then he'd stand on three different legs and move another leg forward. And so on...
(Actually, I think cockroaches can run on four legs using this technique).

Pretty good so far, I like the blink.

You may want to put a red body segment between each set of legs.

The feet need to grip the ground more. The trailing edge might need to come inward a bit, or you might shift the feet & bones to a more oblique angle.



And just in case it might help, here's Richard Williams on how to animate a spider walking:

jahnocli wrote:Hmmm. If you think about it, the ant would find it very difficult to walk like this. It's more productive to think "how many legs does the ant need to be stable?", and the answer is 3. So for each stage of the ant's walk, he would move just one leg forward. Then he'd stand on three different legs and move another leg forward. And so on...
(Actually, I think cockroaches can run on four legs using this technique).

Awesome! Thank you for that! Definitely good advice I knew something was really off

willf wrote:Pretty good so far, I like the blink.

You may want to put a red body segment between each set of legs.

The feet need to grip the ground more. The trailing edge might need to come inward a bit, or you might shift the feet & bones to a more oblique angle.

Awesome! Thank you willf! Quick question, what do you mean by the trailing edge?

Sorry, I just meant that the toe usually trails after the rest of the foot. If the heel strikes the ground first, the toe curls down and grabs the ground, and that the feet seem to be turned sideways, but that might be the look you are going for.

willf wrote:Sorry, I just meant that the toe usually trails after the rest of the foot. If the heel strikes the ground first, the toe curls down and grabs the ground, and that the feet seem to be turned sideways, but that might be the look you are going for.

Okay yeah I see what you mean now! Haha yeah its still a work in progress. Thanks for the help I'm definitely going to fix that!

Thank you!

He sure is happy!

His legs should move more quickly. At the rate he's walking, it would take him 25 years to get across a room. Ants tend to "scurry" more. Actually, the spider video above shows the quicker movement well, though it makes me feel itchy after watching it, haha.

Danimal wrote:He sure is happy!

His legs should move more quickly. At the rate he's walking, it would take him 25 years to get across a room. Ants tend to "scurry" more. Actually, the spider video above shows the quicker movement well, though it makes me feel itchy after watching it, haha.

Thanks Danimal!

Yeah once I do the final render he will be doing more than scurrying...

I don't think anything could have topped that spider walk tutorial to show how an insect (or arachnid) should be animated to walk. And since mtbuck is going for a character ant, the walk is obviously going to be more anthropomorphic, but in any event, I finished an ant walk for my latest work, I don't know if it'll help, and moreover it's on my company fb page, so I'm not sure if it'll link all that well. But here's the link

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=62 ... =2&theater

Little Yamori wrote:I don't think anything could have topped that spider walk tutorial to show how an insect (or arachnid) should be animated to walk. And since mtbuck is going for a character ant, the walk is obviously going to be more anthropomorphic, but in any event, I finished an ant walk for my latest work, I don't know if it'll help, and moreover it's on my company fb page, so I'm not sure if it'll link all that well. But here's the link

Cool! I like it! Thanks Little Yamori!

Have no idea why someone on a different Gecko facebook page posted this, but of all things it was a video animation of how an ant walks. Go figure

http://imgur.com/wQnLshV

I like how Minuscule does it:


You barely see the legs moving because they're so thin and fast, it makes them very insect like and still cartoony.

Thanks a lot little Yamori and Lukas those are some awesome references