How to do Walkcycles -- which method?

[Rasheed]

When I use the walkcycle from the Walktutor, I get this animation:


When I follow Richard Williams' (Animator's Survival Kit) description of a real walk animation, I get this animation:



To me the second animation has much more life in it than the first. I think this has something to do with slow in and slow out. Here are all frames of each animation copied in a single frame.
first animation
second animation

Questions:

1. Does this mean that there is more variantion in the speed in the second animation? And is this why the second animation seems more alive?

2. What type of animation should I use in Moho, the one suggested in the Walktutor, or the one suggested by Richard Williams?

Both methods are rather complicated at first (there are still some minor errors in the second animation), but I guess they become less so if you get used to the method.

Edit: Here is a longer SWF walk (100 Kb). I used Smooth interpolation, which seems to cause a slight Moho flow. The Step interpolation seems to give much better results in more "alive" walk cycles. The walk cycle from the Walktutor doesn't have Moho flow in this degree, because of the Bone Locking. This seems to make the walks much easier to implement with the Walktutor method.

Is in this case easier also better?

2nd Edit: I guess this post is in the wrong category; it should have been in the "Tips and Techniques" forum.

I tried to use the model from the Walktutor (with the thick lines instead of shapes for limbs), but this proved to be even more difficult. The spacing between the frames became too irregular for a convincing animation. The character is all over the place!

It seems your character design is very important if you want to create different types of walk animations.

And I've experienced that doing correct walk cycles is very very difficult and laborious, and requires a well thought trough plan. Simply trying to move bones does not lead to solid animation. That is very clear to me by now.

For now, I'll stick to my simple character design and try to do some of the walk cycles from the Animator's Survival Kit. First on paper and only then in Moho.

[Rasheed]

Because nobody seemed willing to help me understand the normal walk cycle, I made a thorough study of it, trying to observe as many useful features as possible and note them on my website (see Walk cycles -> normal walk cycle). Here is the result (2 steps in 32 frames):


I hope I have analyzed the normal walk cycle well enough to be able to advance to the more cartoony walk cycles. It takes a lot of concentration, and even more checking and correcting afterwards. Walk cycles are just a lot of work, it seems.

[Rasheed]

D*** there are still little mishaps in the animation. In the down position, neither legs are stretched and there is still too much "Moho flow". I will have to study even harder...

[vanleth]

Please keep on, its a very interresting read. And yes a perfect walk cycle is not easy work. I like your results so far.

The arm animations compared to the legs, are im my opinion to stiff. Maybe bend them just a tiny bit.

[Rasheed]

Thanks for your response and advice! I thought no-one was interested.

[teotoon]

Dear Rasheed,

Maybe, as the author of the "Walk Tutor", I should have replied before, but I have been waiting for the development of your arguments (and of course counter-arguments).

First of all, I should undeline that the Tutor was written at the time of earlier versions of Moho. The capabilities of the software progressed enourmously, particularly by the release of v. 5.xx. So, I think we can put more "life" in the walk cycle by using new tools.

Besides, "Walk tutor" is just a guideline at the beginning level. People may develop it by using their skills and imagination.

A few tips: You can change the walk style considerably by playing with the main bone of the body, as long as the foot lock parameters remain the same.

If I have time, I will update the tutor according to the new version.

You have done great job so far, please continue to think about techniques, apply them and share with us!

And you may also think about the run. This is also an interesting experiment in Moho. I have already preapared some run animations using the same technique as the "Walk Tutor". After completing the final touches, I will send them to the Forum to stimulate new discussions...

Cheers,

Teotoon

[Rasheed]

If I have time, I will update the tutor according to the new version.

That would be great, teotoon.

Of course, you're right, the walk tutor was meant for beginners and it leads to much better results than simply moving the legs up and down with bones while moving the character with layer translation.

I was under the impression that the walk tutor was the best one could do with Moho, until I read the Animator's Survival Kit. This is really a must-have, even for non-professional animators. And DVDs from animation from the 1930s and 1940s are an invaluable source of study material as well. I really recommend studying scenes from the Walt Disney Treasures DVD series, frame-by-frame.

[Rai López]

...Are you refering to any special DVD?

[Rasheed]

Not really, but I think the ones with Goofy (IIRC not yet released in region 2) contain the best walk and run animations. I used the following:
Micky Mouse in Living Color, volume 2 (1939 - today)
The Chronological Donald, volume 1 (1934 - 1941)

I have a small budget, so I will not buy any more from the Treasures series (except the Goofy DVD). But I guess if you have enough money, you could buy them all. They are a treasure trove of high quality animation, useful for both 2D and 3D animators.

[Rasheed]

Today I've tried to focus on body angle. During a walk, the body is leaning forward constantly, but the weight is shifted to the front (in the down position just after the contact position), the body leans forward even more. I also tried to incorporate better arm movement (lower arms move too), but this hasn't been so succesfull. Maybe better next time.

I have used inbetweens and Step interpolation to eliminate any Moho flow, because Moho interpolates incorrectly in most cases (IMO this causes the Moho flow). Nevertheless, the animation seems quite fluent (17 fps, with almost only 2s).

[JCook]

I think your walk cycle is really coming along very nicely. I agree with you about The Animator's Survival Kit - it's definitely a must have!

Here's a question: do you use bone locking for the feet? If so, how do you use it? I've tried out teotoon's tutorial, but when i lock the foot bones they don't stay put, they actually move in a limited way. And not just lifting up when the body goes up, but they move around way too much. I've done the Moho tutorial on bone locking, but it still doesn't work that well for me.

Also, I was wondering if at some point you might post the Moho walk cycle file so that we could take a look at how you've done it. It doesn't have to be a perfect cycle, but it would be great to see it.

Jack

[Rasheed]

@JCook: I will post the location of the Moho from now on. The earlier walk cycles weren't really useful.

Here is an animation that I made using a separate bone layer for each walk cycle position. This seems to be much much easier than bone manipulation in the successive keyframes of a single bone layer.

I started by positioning the bones so that they represent the contact position (left foot in front). I copied this layer and made a right foot in front version of it. With layer translation, I positioned this second bone layer so, that both left feet overlapped.

Next I copied the first contact position and used layer translation to position the head between the heads of the two other layers, manipulated the bones so, that they resemble the passing position (left foot flat on the floor), with the left foot overlapping the left feet of the other two positions.

In the same manner I constructed the catch position (down position, when the full weight of the body going down is on both legs) and the thrust position (up position, where the calve is pushing the body upwards). The other three positions where just copies of the earlier created bone layers, with left and right limbs positions exchanged with the rotate bones tool.

After I created all the bone layers, I put these in a switch layer. The animation consists of switching layers and an occasionally layer translotion (every 8 frames). In this animation the switch layer contains:
* contact left (contact position with left leg in front)
* catch left (down position)
* passing left
* thrust left (up position)
and the same 4 positions for right leg
For more fluent animation, I would have to create inbetween frames. I will try that tomorrow. The process is really much like the one described above to create the 2 times four positions (contact, catch, passing, thrust).

(click on the picture to view the SWF version)

You can find the (zipped) Moho file here.

I discovered that it is very important that the horizontal distance between the positions of the head between successive frames remains the same. IOW the head is spaced evenly in the horizontal direction. This means the in the passing position, the standing leg MUST tilt forwards. And the body tilts forwards as the body goes down and tilts back as the body goes up, but overall the body is leaning forwards (a step is in fact a controlled fall).

I put some other observations in the animation as well, which I will not mention here.

[JCook]

Thanks, Rasheed. That's brilliant. Using switch layers for the bones themselves is a great idea.

jack

[Rasheed]

I've corrected the SWF file from yesterday. Now it runs at 4 fps (not very fluent). Today I have made the inbetweens (one between each position). To have the character walk just as fast, the new SWF file needs to run at twice the speed (8 fps). If you click the picture below, you'll see the difference. Just as fast, but much more fluent.


I've done some optimizing and correcting. If you look carefully, you might see that in yesterdays animation, the arm motion was all wrong. In some frames the left arm was following the left leg, instead of the right. Because my character has very slim limbs with outlines, this mistake is easily made.

The optimization is less obvious, but instead of having all parts of the character in separate layers, I put them all in one layer. This is much easier when you bind bones to selected points. And it is easier to replace the character with another design. Of course, you have to rebind the points of the character to the bones for each bone layer. However, having to copy just one single vector layer in each bone layers is much faster. If you put each body part in a separate vector layer, you would have to copy each body part to many bone layers, which would be a lot of work.

I guess this method gives you total control over your animation, with the flexibility of bone animation. It is much more laborious than rigging a character and animating the bones, but the result is so much better, that I think it worth the extra effort.

You can find the zipped Moho file here.

[Rasheed]

You can create all kinds of interesting walks, which don't occur in reality, but seem real enough for the human eye.

The arm movements are left out, so the animations is easier to create. It is just to see if this walk would work for a particular character design.

If you look closely, you'll see the outlines of the lower leg aren't were they are supposed to be. Sometimes the curve is too far out, or even bent inwards. In a simple rigged character this would be a serious problem, but because we only used bones as a construction tool, we can easily change the curves of a character, without effecting the curves in the other frames. This is done in the animation below.



This seems to be a powerful method. Design your character in frame 0, rig it with bones, design your animation in frame 1 with bone tools on multiple copies of the same bone layer, put them in a switch layer, animate by switching layers and clean up any inconsistancies.

The two Moho files can be downloaded in this zipped archive.

Until now I was under the impression you had to chose either to use a character design and animate it with bones (like puppet animation), or draw each frame with drawing tools (like pencil animation). The first method is very flexible, but rather unprecise, the second method is precise, but difficult to adjust afterwards. Now with this third method, you have it both ways: precise animation which is easy to adjust.

I wonder if more of this useful tricks are possible with Moho.