Research-
I wrote down research notes that I used, or had in mind, while I was doing the walk and run cycle animation for this assignment.
(The research notes above I have taken down are from Doodley YouTube videos on animating arms and animating legs.)
I took screenshots of my animations and added annotations to help convey the notes I used or had in mind while I was animating the walks and run cycles.
There are some notes that I had taken down but didn’t necessarily add with the annotations. However, I kept those in mind while I was animating.
There are a few key poses while doing a walk cycle. The first is is the contact. This is when the foot first meets the ground. You should see this mainly at the back of the heel, Down is the next key pose. This is when the front foot is flat on the ground and the back foot is starting to lift up. Next we have Pass. This is mid walk so this tends to look awkward in a still image. The front foot is passing backwards and the back is passing forwards. Up is the next pose. This is the highest point in a walk cycle. This is when the body will start to drop down again when it makes contact with the ground. The steps then repeat for the other leg and this makes a full walk cycle loop.
In a run cycle there is an extra keyframe when your character “pushes off” the ground.
In a walk/run cycle you want the hips of your character to counterbalance the legs.
Picturing this as a scale can help. As one leg is lifted up this pulls the opposite hip down. Additionally, at the pass position they start to balance/straighten out, then turning the other way on the contact position.
It helps to picture the hip motion creating a figure 8 motion as they move and rotate throughout a walk/run cycle animation.
There should be hip movement in every walk cycle but how much the hip moves can depend greatly on the personality of the character you are animating.
Shifting the centre of gravity in a walk/run is a great way of communicating personality or emotion. Small changes to the animation can have a great affect on the personality of a character, even foot placement or movement has a great affect on the personality of a character.
If a character is angry they tend to have the hips and upper body forward, their centre of gravity is in front of them making them take wider steps.
If a character is happy or prideful their centre of gravity is backwards as they are opening their body a bit more this also causes them to take wider steps.
Manipulating with a characters centre of gravity can give the impression they are drunk or sick.
If you keep the centre of gravity locked down they feel uptight.
For runs you see that figure 8 motion again, with the feet from the side view. This is because the character should be launching their body off the ground with each step. This doesn’t apply to walks as they make contact with the ground more.
Walks tend to happen naturally while runs have more of an intent.
Knowing why a character is running can help convey emotion in their run.
Knowing how and why a character moves can really make an animation.
I originally was planning on doing the walks in 3D to show diversity in my animations however, instead used my 3D animations as a reference for my walk with personality (sassy walk).
I used the IK vs FK notes I make from the Doodley animation legs and animation arms as a reference for my for my 3D animations.
When animating the arm rotations in the 3D walk cycles it is good to use Fk. This is because you can do sweeping motions as FK is rotation based, so curves tend to be a lot easier. When I was animating the legs I used IK. By animating the legs in IK the feet then stick in place. Animating the feet locked down helps give weight to your animation without it nothing feels right. In 2D animation is is called ‘registering’ the feet.
It is good to keep in mind that a larger character will tend to move slower, this is useful to bear in mind when animating a character with personality.
IK is good for positing the end of the chain, this makes if better for a straight motion.
When the arms are following the movement of the shoulder or upper body, then the arm is in the shoulder or upper body’s space. However, if the arm is stuck (IK) then it is in world space.
Video research/references
Image references-
Reflecting-
Feedback notes-
Aodhan-
- “Appears to be a pop in her hair near the right shoulder at the end of the loop”
- “The green haired lady pauses for too long in her passing pose,…The vanilla walk is nice, I would straighten her leg more in the ip pose to add some more vitality.”
Alec-
- I would see if racing the legs/body a little bit more in highest pose of the run might add a bit more oomff to this.”
- change foot rotation and change to smaller steps on old personality walk
- fix the hair on the vanilla walk cycle
- on the vanilla walk make the up and down motion smaller
My Animations
Using the walk cycle reference image and adding in the what I learned in class plus the Doodley notes I created this walk cycle.
I made sure to add drag on the hands to stop the animation from looking stiff, and I added a little bounce in the hair as the character walks I also add more secondary animation on the skirt as the character walks.
With the feedback I got for this animation I made the up and down motion of each step smaller so there is less of a bounce.
For this walk I was attempting to create a regal walk cycle.
I tried to use the regal walk cycle from the 16 walk cycles- different attitudes video as a reference but I struggled to get the personality quite right.
Instead I made her steps smaller and changed the rotation of her foot movements.
Theres not much action with the dress as the character is taking small steps the the secondary action is mainly on the hair and small bow.
I wasn’t happy with how this one turn out so that is why I ended up with two walks with personality. I decide to also include this because I didn’t want to throw away all the work I did on this one.
Looking closely at this, there is too much of a bounce in the hair.
This is my second attempt at a walk with personality. I definitely think this one turned out much better and has a lot of motion throughout the animation with how the hair and hip sways from side to side.
I used the run cycle reference image to create this run cycles .
I made sure to have secondary actions in this with her hair and dress.
With the feedback I went back and fixed the hair at the up poses so it wasn’t as big of a change in volume.
When I came to doing the run with personality I was really struggling to come up with any ideas, in the end I ended up doing the anime trope of being late for school. This trope starts with the character panicking that they woke up late and are now having to take their breakfast on the way to school this creates the iconic image of a character run with a slice of toast in their mouth.
This character probably has the most section action in it with the hair, bow and skirt movements.
With the feedback I went back and fixed the pop in the hair above the right shoulder.
Conclusion-
When it came to doing the animations the information I got from watching the Doodley videos really helped me out in the endgame. Looking back on my older walk cycles I did over the summer and at the start of this term I’ve noticed all of my older walk cycles are rather stiff, basic and void of personality. Now I have a much better under standing of how body mechanics works and how to add Personality to my walk and run cycles.
None of these walks really conveys that these characters have personality.
At first I found that I didn’t like Harmony, and found it hard to draw anything that wasn’t an adventure time inspired art style but now that I have a better understanding of how Toonboom Harmony works I found using it much easier. I can now add better and more details to my animations. However, I still have that Adventure Time inspired art style with these animations and with further practice I hope to animate in my normal style in the future.
I also found when animating a 3D character it is helpful for the model to have IK and FK controls. Both IK and FK have different purposes and just animating in FK can be rather difficult. When it comes to animating the feet as it is much harder to have the feet stick in place thus losing the weight of the movement.
I have done a couple of walk cycle animation over the summer and throughout my time at tech, so I had a rough idea on how to animated one. However, this is the first time I have tried doing run cycles. I think both my run cycle animations turn out well for my first go at them.