Polybook, procyonlotor

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!  

I took a second pass at the Zelda walk cycle.  I sped it up a bit, and reduced some of the curves (head bobble, arm swing, cape).  I think increasing the speed was a good move, but it may have showcased some of the other problems.  I feel like the cycle doesn't feel balanced (like she has a little limp), but I can't seem to find the source of the problem.  I feel it most in the left arm, but I can't see any problem in the curves.  Any comments would be appreciated.  I'll keep practicing.

Hey, I dont have experience with animation, I just walked a couple of times across my room and tried to compare it :D It dont know what you mean that it doesnt feel balanced, to me it feels like its kinda stiff and I cant "feel" the weight of her when shes walking.

To me it seems that the step is kinda ending prematurely and that the leg should get more straight and reach a bit further before it touches the ground. Even when I walk really slowly, my leg gets almost straight before I put it down. And when I put my weight on it, it becomes completely straight as the knee gets locked. She looks like shes putting it down while its still bent and keeps it a bit bent even when her weight is on it, and it only becomes straight as she lifts it off the ground in the back. If your knee is bent with your weight on it, the muscles have to be tensed so the leg doesnt collapse. But when the knee is locked straight, most of the weight is supported by the bone. The arms also feel a bit stiff, but I dont know why.

Also when I walk "casually" like this, my leg is pretty relaxed when its in the air, and when I put my weight on it, I can feel the femur kinda get deeper into the socket at the pelvis. Its doesnt happen as much when I walk faster, because the muscles around are more tensed. But even so, when the leg is in the air, I can still feel it beight pulled by its own weight and then get pushed when I step on it. I am not sure how much of that is visible from the outside though.

Im not sure if this is any help :D Anyway, good luck.

Thanks for the feedback. I think the knees not quite straightening is fine, and can be chalked up to different folks having different gaits (my knees are usually still bent a little on contact).  I agree that the arms feel stiff.  I could probably find better arm poses, but I am wrestling with the rig a bit there, as some of the defaults seem a little weird to me (the forearm only has a single axis of rotation).  Not wrong, necessarily, I just feel like I have to set more keys to get the right pose, and I may have not gone through enough effort.

I was going for stately (she is a princess after all), but not for "stiff." But I think I may have found some of the problem.  I thought I had shortened it to a 32 frame cycle, making 17 the exact middle, but in fact I made it 34, so the exact middle falls on a half-frame, and I think that is producing the limping sensation I am getting.  I was trying to clean it up just now and Maya crashed.  I will give it another go here in a bit, and see if that fixes things.

I love this rig. I want to make rigs like this for Blender so bad. (so uh....character artists, lets talk eh?)

My initial reaction was the walk still feels a little slower than a typical walk cadence. But then I saw you were going for a bit of a "stately" walk and maybe that means they walk slow to show off how magnificent they are. 

I agree with what tomasplasil said. The knees stay bent quite a bit. The back leg could probably translate back just a little bit more during the walks down position. This is the point in the walk where you start placing weight behind that leg for the push off. Then again you can straighten the knee out some in the leading foot as it comes down to the contact. Knee pops tend to occupy this area in the walk but I think that change in shape of the leg is going to sell the walk better.

The other thing about the feet I notice is the leading foot is slowing down before it makes contact with the floor again. Walks are just controlled falls and the feet are their to catch us. Remember the spacing of your bouncing ball exercises. Make it so we can feel the impact of those feet a little bit. I know there can be gliding walks and slower walks but its very hard to slow you're heal down when there is a full body falling behind it. Get that heal down and ease the toe down if that's what your going for. 

The arms you already know need to soften up a bit. The forearm is locked to one axis in a lot of rigs. In lots of cartoony styles you can break that elbow at times but it would be done sparingly. Twist the upper arm to get the elbow the way you need it and block in your keys and breakdowns like you would with any other part of the rig and the number of keys you need to place will be minimal. 

And now about your limp issue you see. I think it might be in the hips and where you have them swing over to transfer weight.  Hold the hips a few more frames on the posted foot before swinging them over to the new passing/leading foot.  The hip swing is not a perfect parabola in you're graph the arc usually weights a little heavy to the right side of the key. ( I don't know if that makes sense ummmm..........look at my doodle below)

I hope that makes sense. If you have any questions let me know. You can always hit me up on the Discord channel as well.  

Keep at it, happy animating!

Here is the polish pass with the correct number of frames in the cycle: 

Thanks phoenix4690  ! I always appreciate sensible doodles.  And I may come find you in the discord as I'm going through class projects.  And I second more blender rigs.  I've discovered so many great (and free) rigs since I started using Maya for class. Pretty much the only ones I have for blender I got here.  There are a few on blendswap and sketchfab, but the quality varies and good ones can be hard to track down.  I am going to get P2Design's rigging course as I've heard good things, so maybe we can find a good character artist to collab with.  Did you take any of the iAnimate rigging classes?

There are a ton of great rigs in Maya; check this resource out when you get a chance. It a compiled list of great resources.
https://animatorsresourcekit.blog/ 

I went through P2Design's rigging course and it does a fantastic job. If you want to get into rigging it takes a lot of the confusion out of it when you're starting out. I haven't taken any of the iAnimate rigging classes but kind of want to. It would be cool to know the process for both programs. I'm having a lot of fun rigging a character I had commissioned. Its getting REALLY close to time for animation tests.

Awesome! Thanks for the resource. That looks fantastic!  And glad to hear another good review of Pierrick's course.  I purchased it today and am excited to get started. I enjoyed his Dragon Knight course a lot.

tomasplasil  phoenix4690  Thank you guys so much for the critiques!  I have taken one last stab at it based on your feedback and I think it was a significant improvement.  I am calling this final for now and moving on to other things, but would still love to hear any feedback you have.

We are spending 3 weeks on walk cycles for class, so this week (week 2) I am going to work back in blender.  Here is a quick block out, but I would love to hear feedback and ideas to improve. 

Thanks @jlampel and @waylow for the feedback! And yes Wayne, I started the Feature track at iAnimate this fall (mostly based on your high praise for it, so thanks for that too). I’ll take your tips to heart and get Melvin wherever it is he’s going. 

Polished up the Melvin walk cycle based on feedback:

Polish pass #2: Smoothed out the head bob.  Increased the head's total x-rotation and moved overlap forward by three frames.

Thanks @remingtongraphics for a fun course:

Walk cycle #3.