slow walk

[aphid]

can anyone give me any tips on a 'slow (profile) walk', of like a stork or stealthy cat. My problem is they look like they ice-skating. The leg on the ground into the pass position moves along. I look at the pattern of examples in moho tutorials, but they quick- I can do 'quick'. Do I need more keyframes maybe? or maybe my cat should wear ice-skates. Any advice please?

[Rasheed]

I haven't seen your animation, but often this "iceskating" is an indication that the movement of your character's limbs doesn't coincide with the forward motion of your character. Remember, that when a limb touches the floor, it does not move relative to the floor. Only when it leaves the floor, the limb starts to move forward again, like the rest of the character.

The best way to look at it, is to see a walk as a controlled fall, the limb (or limbs) touching the floor prevents the character from falling over. It sometimes feels like the limb on the floor want to stay there as long as possible.

I hope this helps. If it doesn't, perhaps you could share what you have done so far, so more experience animators than me can give you advice.

[aphid]

Thanks. Your right, when the object is still, its OK, its when I start to move the layer in a particular direction. I probably don't know enough how to control layer movement yet, so I get a moving staircase effect. Maybe I should learn where to halt the layer, like when object touches the ground on each step...... will try this anyway.

[Rasheed]

Have a look at this walkcycle I made a while ago:
http://img63.imageshack.us/my.php?image ... e9b8rz.swf
The SWF animation was made in Moho using multiple copies of a bone layer inside a switch layer. This setup gave me absolute control over the animation.

Of course, cats don't walk like that. In fact, the walk of a cat has close resemblence with the walk of a horse. But I guess if you don't understand and aren't able to animate a human walk cycle, an animal's walkcycle is going to be even more difficult. Bipedal (two legged) locomotion is easier to animate than quadrupedal (four legged) locomotion.

I also would like to give you the advice to buy/read The Animator's Survival Kit, which has an extensive coverage on walkcycles, which can be used and applied by both newbies and advanced animators. It isn't expensive to buy (if your local libary doesn't have a copy) and a good investment in any case for every (wanabee and professional alike) animator.

[aphid]

thanks again. I do have the book. I think I just not yet used to using Moho. Havent really got the handling of a character moving thro space with the translate layer tool, I can't get the synch right with the slow walk.I agree with you about the book- it is a must have. true about bi-ped walk as well. I will get there eventualy.......and with four legs.

[Rasheed]

Well, I did one complete two-step cycle with bone animation and repeated that while using layer translation

So:
- bone animation left step (frames 1-4)
- bone animation right step (frames 5-8 )
- quick layer translation (frame 8/9)
- bone animation in frames 9-16 is the same as in frames 1-8
- quick layer translation (frame 16/17)
- bone animation in frames 17-24 is the same as in frames 1-8
- quick layer translation (frame 24/25)
etc.

Now, a cat never walks in a straight path, at least, not in slow walks, so you need the cat to move on a curved path instead of a straight line. You can do the following to move your 2D layer (or group) in 3D along a path:

1) create an image of a tile floor, like this 640 x 480 PNG image:

2) import it into MOHO with a 320 x 240 format
3) move it so, that the bottom of the image aligns with the bottom of the visible area (1 unit up vertically)
4) move the center to the bottom of the visible area (2 units down vertically)
5) rotate the image layer -90 degrees around the x axis

Now everything you draw in a vector layer that is within the visible area will be either on or above the floor. And if you move that vector layer into the negative z or both x directions, you move the drawn objects either on or above the floor.

Now you can draw a walkpath on the floor very easily, by using the tiles as a reference. Simply do the same operations 3-5 on a vector layer and draw in that vector layer.

Here is a simple animation of a rectangle moving on the floor.
http://media.putfile.com/Walk-the-path-76

Of course, your 2D animation should reflect the movement in 3D. You could use two or more 2D layers for the torso, and one (or more) for each limb. Now your cat can move its torso in 3D by rotating the torso layers along the x and y axes. Make sure you put the layer center at the correct position (because it acts as the pivot point for the rotation). Something similar applies to the limbs, the head and the tail.

Selgin had made an example of this technique (African Elephant), but the video has been removed from YouTube, so I can't point you to that animation example.

[aphid]

Thanks for all your advice. I am just about getting it for a bi-ped slow walk, I had just realised to move the layer a little bit at a time , it has made all the difference. I will have a go at the 2d- 3d walk, but have only just about got to that 3d part and it dont always work out right yet.With the cat animation I will try to copy one from the Richard Williams book to get the hang of it.

[Víctor Paredes]

here is my african elephant. sorry i erased before.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuITDhDhuRs

i hope it be useful.