Strange Kiwi walk in prog

MattVG · Post by **MattVG** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 4:07 am

A kiwi character I have been commissioned to animate for someone.

I did not draw the original character which I find to be in a rather un-kiwi-like pose and is rather awkward to animate but I did paint it and am now working on animating it for its owner.

I'm still working on getting a feel for Anime Studio but here's a walk cycle. I just can't seem to keep his feet from slipping and it still doesn't feel very tight so I'm putting it up for the world to rip apart... not that there's much there in the first place...

Made using bitmap images.

Please critique

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2C0e26yUf8

Edit:
Hmmm... perhaps it's too short and too low resolution. Perhaps I'll put up a longer, higher res version tomorrow.

Genete · Post by **Genete** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 9:32 am

Are you using lock bones tool?. It will solve feet slipping effect. The whole walk cycle is very good anyway.

JCook · Post by **JCook** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 5:29 pm

I think the walk cycle looks pretty good. The feet are slipping a bit, but it's not too bad; the lock bones tool should fix it. I think the bird is too upright, though, I think he needs to lean forward quite a bit. Looks great otherwise.

Jack

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 5:29 pm

That's a nice walk already. As for the feet: use the surrounding. Hide the feet partly behind a grass overlay.

MattVG · Post by **MattVG** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 5:38 pm

Thanks for the input.

I made the walk an action so I don't think locking his feet will work. I have thought of hiding his feet with grass but I'd rather get it right even if his feet will be hidden. I try not to cheat if I possibly can

His posture is way too upright for a Kiwi but that's how the character was designed. I'll try another walk with him leaning forward more.

MattVG · Post by **MattVG** » Wed Dec 27, 2006 9:20 pm

I also have a question about how and what I ought to bill my client for the rest of the animation described here:

http://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7619

yetivsgnome · Post by **yetivsgnome** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 5:40 am

Use the step frames. Also if you did a walk cycle then translated the layer to make him move across the screen you may have moved him to fast.

MattVG · Post by **MattVG** » Thu Dec 28, 2006 6:38 pm

What do you mean by "use the step frames"?

I think the problem is that the feet do not move at a constant speed in my walk cycle. So when I translate the layer at a constant speed to make him walk forward, the feet slide because they keep changing speed... I am unsure as to how to fix this without major tweaking and without ending up with a keyframe in every frame. This problem arose because I had to mess with his legs to keep his feet above ground.

Mikdog · Post by **Mikdog** » Sun Dec 31, 2006 2:02 pm

Looks nice.

I'd also try using STEP FRAMES.

Look for YETI VS GNOME in the Animated Blog thread in Share Your Work, or www.yetivsgnome.com

I think that kind of animation might work quite well.

MattVG · Post by **MattVG** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 7:33 pm

I enjoy the Yeti vs Gnome shorts but I'm still confused as to what step frames are. OK, I looked it up online (don't know why I didn't earlier). Animating using step frames refers to placing keyframes on every frame?

Touched · Post by **Touched** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 9:37 pm

Step frames are frames that are not interpolated. You can use them to stop the motion in certain places so the animation is not "floaty". The important thing in AS is that you can do this independently for any bone or point you choose. It's not an all-or-nothing thing.