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[Rayneslayer]

Again I'm having issues with the vagueness of the otherwise great basic walk tutorial. I moved on to making my own figures and animations, but it says in the walk tutorial that

"In the case of a walk, it's even simpler.  Since both legs move the same, just out of sync by 50%, you only have to animate one half of they cycle, then copy the animation to the other half."

It galls me when he says "you'll only have to..." cuz he never tells me how >.>

Anyways, I have an arm animation that I want to copy to the other side so they'll alternate, like a walk sequence, but neither the manual nor the tutorial says anything about how to do it.

If you know, could you tell me how, please?

Thanks

[floyd86]

You simply have to copie the value you have ffor the bones to the bones on the other side with an interval of a few frames.
So the values for the left leg on frame 0 have to be copied to the right leg on ie frames 12.

[Rayneslayer]

crap, whatever response I wrote never got on here...

anyhow, I asked for you to be more specific, because I tried that, but I didn't work, although I probably didn't do the right thing  because the description wasn't to clear :/

thanks for trying, can you be clearer? XD

[floyd86]

Well the fact is you can't simply copy one half of the animation to the other side. You will have to create new keyframes. You can do this be double clicking on the key you want to copy, then copy the value and then create a new key for another bone and give it the copied value. ie you want the right arm to have to same position as the left arm. Double click on the key set for the left arm, copy the value (for example 10). Then select the right arm, create a new key (edit>keyframes>key selected) and paste the value (in this case 10).

I hope this is a bit clearer.

[Rayneslayer]

Okay, thats perfectly clear, and I got it to work, but not how I want. Right now, the values are exactly as you said, they're been copied, so my limbs are doing the same thing at the same time.

What I need is for them to alternate, like legs do in a walking sequence. How do I do that?

Thanks very much

[floyd86]

A walk sequence is nothing more the legs doing the same movement but then a frames different from eachother. So for example keep the keyframs of the right leg the same and move (cut and paste)  the key frames of the leg a few frames (mostly 24/2= 12) further. This way the right leg will move forward and backward and the left leg forward and backwards 12 frames later.
Maybe take a look to this video tutorial from johnar which explains the concept:

&feature=channel_page

[captaindrewi]

johnars video is so excellent . and these links demonstrate whats possible.
the knight doesn't skate
the other one we cant tell because of the floor but fluid stuff.

youtube.com/watch?v=wIazkMf7cNU[/youtube]&feature=channel_page]http://www.

&feature=channel_page
youtube.com/watch?v=ofg05b9R9eE[/youtube]&feature=related]http://www.

&feature=related

but a clear succint tutorial on how to avoid skating is what we need
[i know that must have been said before]

[johnar]

 There is a way to at least 'minimize skating', and even stop it all together.
  It comes down to 'positioning and double keying'.
 I'll make up something a little more 'succint' to help explain.
 For now, i gotta go to work.

[captaindrewi]

Hey Johnar...where'd yer go?
did some scouring and found a double sequence approach.
i have made a training version, the .an8 file is on animannon
here

[johnar]

 Nice. .  That method gives excellent results. Little bit of mucking around if the animation becomes a bit more complex, but aprt from that, it looks like it gives a decent result.
 I got home the other day, thinking i had this floor-skating thing sussed. But then when i tried to get it right through double keying etc..., i realised that it wasn't as straight forward as i had thought.
 (i remember, quite a while ago, when we discovered that a double key would bring your character to a dead stop.  Then a corner key further down would hold is position till then. Over time i must've created the false illusion that i could now stop floor slipping altogether. Hmmm.)
 I got it in the end, by means of a 'measuring stick'. (step stick).
 Just a longish black rectangle, with white markings, each exactly the same size as the characters foot, and spaced exactly the distance apart of the characters 'stride'. (i used morph targets on the stick to stretch the distance between his stride till i got it just right. The stride also needs to be the same for both left and right steps. (sequence mode adjustment).

 Put character in scene and position it. Then add 'step-stick',  side view of the character,, and position under his feet, with front foot perfectly in white area. Key position, copy position key and paste on next frame.
 But heres the mundane bit. Every third frame i would make sure the position of the foot was the same as 3 frames earlier.  (Turn off Y and Z position axis, slide character on X axis back to the right position if needed. Key position each 3rd frame)
 Continue till back leg has travelled to front. When new front leg, (foot), touches ground, key position, and again, copy-paste that key to next frame, and repeat as before, keying every 3rd frame.

 So, there is still a bit of mucking round, but results are reasonably ok.
 I should post an example vid, but can't do right now. Am in town and don't have it on my flashdrive.
 maybe 2moro.

 
 

[sbenator]

I like the idea of the step stick, I'll give that a go.
I've had some reasonable success by simply placing a box or some kind of marker in front of the foot and then moving through frame by frame shifting the figure so it stays in contact with the marker.
It'd be nice if you could turn off tweening in anim8or instead of having to do all the double keyframes and stuff to get things to move how you want.

[johnar]

 Hi, ,

 Have posted my eg.

Heres the link.

 Still not perfect, but can get through the method quite quickly once you get in the swing of it. 

 I've got no idea how hard this next idea would be to program, but i was thinking that, even when IK comes into affect in anim8or, its something that wouldn't necessarily need to be discarded after that.
 Maybe some sort of 'magnet'.
ie: when foot touches floor, select foot bone, bring in a magnet and place directly below footbone,  and then  connect foot bone temporarily to magnet. (somehow).

 But, for now, i'll probably keep working on the stepstick theory, when i need to.
 Sopmetimes, depending on how your scene is set up, footslip can be ignored because its not even noticable.
 My latest little clip has the road moving, instead of the character.  The footslip isn't a noticeable problem.

 

[captaindrewi]

very neat johnar thanks for the look see
i will be giving the stick measure method a go.