Animation lessons. Bringing character animation closer to reality. (3 pages) Additional materials for the lesson

Other types of walking

In previous exercises we were engaged in reproducing normal walking. However, characters can move in many other ways: running, skipping, dragging their feet, tiptoeing, etc. A character's personality is expressed in his gait, and many animators believe it is a key part of his character. The gait of John Wayne's characters, for example, is very different from the gait of Groucho Marx's characters. Recognizability of a character implies recognition of his gait. Let's analyze several types of movement.

Run

Running is not just fast walking. It is better to think of it not as a constant fall, but as a series of forward jumps, during which the body leans forward much more than when walking. In it, one foot always touches the ground, and while running, sometimes both feet are in the air. The size of such jumps exceeds the maximum possible step length when walking.

Other types of walking

One step when running can take only a few frames. If you want to show very fast running, you need to use motion blur to avoid the strobe effect when moving your legs and feet. Look at the running character and notice the differences between walking and running. The pictures show the running phases. Rice. Figure 9.15 illustrates the position in which the foot is in contact with the ground: the body is tilted forward, and the legs are much further apart than during walking. Then the foot touches the ground and takes a recoil position, due to which the push is softened. As with walking, this is the lowest point of the cycle. Under the influence of the body's impulse, the leg bends even more. To maintain balance, the center of gravity of the body is above the foot touching the ground (Fig. 9.16). The next pose is similar to the passing pose, which occurs in the middle of the step. At this point in the cycle, the leg on the ground pushes the body up and forward (Fig. 9.17). The highest point of the cycle occurs at the moment when the body leaves the ground (Fig. 9.18). Finally, the foot touches the ground and a new jump begins (Fig. 9.19). As with walking, the second half of the cycle should be a mirror image of the first. The body's weight is distributed in such a way that its center of gravity is above the foot touching the ground.

Rice. 9.15.Foot touches the ground

Rice. 9.16. The foot touching the ground softens the shock

Rice. 9.17. The leg on the ground pushes the body up and forward

Rice. 9.18.The body left the ground

Rice. 9.19. The foot touches the ground and a new jump begins

Jumping

Jumping is another type of movement that is very different from walking. The character jumps, pushing off the ground with his foot and lands on it, and then changes his foot and performs the next jump. Although the foot pattern changes, the basic principles of balance remain the same. The character's pelvis, shoulders, and spine move in concert to maintain skeletal balance. The following drawings feature animation frames created by Angie Jones that demonstrate basic leg and body movements. Bet skipping begins in almost the same way as walking - the legs are spaced apart (Fig. 9.20). But such running is mainly carried out on the toes. The weight is then transferred to the forward leg (in this case, the front toe), as shown in Fig. 9.21. The next phase: one leg pushes off the ground, causing the character to make a small jump or leap, the other moves forward as the pelvis rotates (Fig. 9.22). In the middle of the jump, the leg set back moves in the direction of the body movement, the limb extended forward is raised high and strongly bent at the knee (Fig. 9.23). Finally, the character lands on his back foot with the other still up (Figure 9.24).

On the CD in the Chapter09 folder there is a video clip called Skip, which demonstrates skipping.

Rice. 9.20. Initial phase, legs apart

Rice. 9.21. Weight is transferred to one leg

Rice. 9.22.The jump is made

Rice. 9.23. Changing the position of the legs

Rice. 9.24. Landing on one leg

Rice. 9.25. Another foot touches the ground

sneaking gait

Animators love to recreate tiptoe walking in films, a variation of the basic walk in which the character walks on his toes. It is usually used to show the silent movement of the hero. The sneaking gait, also animated by Angie Jones, starts out like a normal walk, except that the character is standing on his toes (Figure 9.26). His center of gravity shifts, so the hero stretches out his arms. He then assumes a giving position. Note that the feet are very close to the ground to make it easier to maintain balance (Fig. 9.27). The next position is a passing position. When walking on tiptoes, the leg standing on the ground does not straighten, as during normal walking (Fig. 9.28). Before the free leg touches the ground, the character leans 1 to maintain balance (Fig. 9.29). At this point the cycle is completed, and you can begin the next step on the other leg (Fig. 9.30).

Rice. 9.26 The character is standing on his toes

Rice. 9.27 Recoil position

Rice. 9.28 Passing position

Rice. 9.29. The character leans a little

Rice. 9.30 The cycle is complete

Animation of walking on four legs

Compared to the animation of walking on two legs, it is doubly difficult to reproduce the walking on four legs. First of all, the anatomy of most four-legged animals (as well as birds and dinosaurs) is fundamentally different from that of primates. For example, a horse moves by pushing off the ground with its toes, since its “heels” are approximately at the level of a person’s knee.

To realistically imitate movement on four legs, you will have to study the movement of real animals. Take a video camera with you to the zoo or watch a nature video documentary and try to understand the mechanism of animal movement.

Four-legged animals move not only with a normal step; their gait can be no less varied than that of a person. The animal's cadence increases as speed increases. Different paces of walking and running are called walk, trot And gallop, although not all animals are capable of developing high speed. For example, an elephant always moves at a walk and never changes its gait - it only changes its speed.

When a horse walks, its legs move in much the same way as a human's arms and legs: if the right hind leg moves back, the right front leg moves forward, and the left legs move in the opposite direction (Figure 9.31). When you change your stride, everything changes. When running at a full gallop, the horse's front legs move synchronously and move forward and backward almost simultaneously. The hind legs also move synchronously (Fig. 9.32).

Rice. 9.31. Step

There is a technique that allows you to give four-legged characters a “cartoon” look. Remember the circus scene in which two clowns pretend to be a horse. Such walking can be recreated as movement on two pairs of legs by setting different constraints in the joints and designing a combination of bodies.

Rice. 9.32. Gallop

Rice. 9.33 Animation frame of a cartoon character

The hind legs shown in Fig. 9.33 dogs bend in a way that is implausible for an animal and resembles the movement of human legs. But the cartoon nature of the character allows the animator to move the dog in this way.

Conclusion

Walking animation is a rather specific task, in which it is necessary to correctly reproduce the movement and weight of the character, as well as position the parts of his body, maintaining a balance between them. Once you've mastered the basics of walking and running, you'll gradually learn how to change the characters' movements so that their gaits will vary depending on their mood or personality. Just as musicians first learn scales and then master improvisation, animators learn the mechanics of walking in order to subsequently create vivid and memorable characters.

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Before talking specifically about the character's walking animation - a bit of dull introductory text, a must read:

Not long ago I decided to expand on the topic a little, for now at least in flat 2D. There are many special programs on this topic, but they are often quite difficult to master on your own, have some limitations, or they contain something else crap that prevents you from being friends with them.

In general, I decided to try to make do with what I am more or less familiar with in practice. As a result, a certain technology was formed, with the help of which I want to create small flat cartoons. The essence of the technology is to use Photoshop to create frames of characteristic objects and objects, combining these frames into short mini-clips in a program for creating flash animation (in my case SwishMax), and then combining them to create a finished cartoon.

This all sounds quite incomprehensible and complicated, but if you figure it out, the method is quite working. In no way do I want to claim that this path is optimal - but at the moment it suits me. I share it with those who are interested.

Character walking animation

1. We create a character on separate layers of body parts that can move - in my case these are: body, shoulder, forearm, hand, thigh, lower leg, foot (for the limbs everything is in duplicate - left / right). These parts could probably be called sprites or something like that. We push these sprites into a group.

2. We create individual movements frame by frame, in this case walking, by copying a group of sprites and changing their location relative to each other in accordance with the movements.

3. Export all movements into separate frames.

4. Import the frames into SwishMax (or another flash program) and create animated clips from individual frames. Or you can simply create an animated GIF directly in Photoshop if required, let’s say just create a walking figure (closed loop) as in the GIF in this article.

Details of the walking animation are in the video. Continuation of how to proceed when assembling it in flash and turning it into an mp4 video file is in future publications.

Anyone who doesn’t leave a comment or doesn’t share on social networks is just a stinker.

In this lesson we will animate our character's gait and teach him to walk.

A cartoon is not only changing frames of characters, it is a whole world in which they live. Therefore, for our first acquaintance with 3D animation, we chose the well-known world of Dunno and his friends created by Nikolai Nosov. There are many characters with different personalities in this work. Everyone will be able to choose their favorite and come up with their own stories that take place in the Flower City. For this lesson, you have already downloaded the model of Dunno, whom we will teach to walk today.

At first glance, it seems that walking is very simple and natural. But if you are an observant person, then you can notice many interesting details while walking. Therefore, before watching this video tutorial, carefully examine these drawings. The movement of body parts when walking is discussed in detail here.

Please note that when walking, not only the arms and legs move, but also the torso: the shoulders and hips rotate. With each step, a person lowers and rises slightly due to the flexion and extension of the legs.

Walking storyboard. The numbers correspond to the frame number. In about one second, a person manages to take a step first with his right and then with his left foot. In cinema, 24 frames change on the screen every second, on television - 25. Therefore, at approximately frame 25, the walking person returns to the original position corresponding to the first frame.

This drawing will help you understand in which frame you need to expose this or that position of body parts.

Now watch this video tutorial and learn how to animate a gait:

Exercise for the lesson

Try to animate running. This storyboard will help you. While running, a person manages to take two steps with his right and left foot in one second. One step is taken in 6 frames. On the seventh frame, the runner moves to a position symmetrical to the first frame.

Additional materials for the lesson

Another video about creating plasticine cartoons.

Text version of the lesson

The “Scarlet Sails” project presents the third lesson of the training course “Creating 3D cartoons in the Maya program.”

Today we will be animating the character's gait.

Before watching this lesson, carefully study the pictures on our website showing the movement of body parts when walking and a storyboard of a person’s gait. A clear understanding of the principles of movement will help you better understand the logic of this lesson.

So, open the Dunno model downloaded from our website.

First, let's set the number of frames that will change per second in our animation. To do this, in the main menu, select Windows – Settings\Preferences – Preferences. The settings window opens. Select Settings, in the Time line select 25 frames - this is the television standard. Click Save Save.

In previous lessons, we created keyframes manually by clicking the create keyframes button.

In the future, we will work in the automatic setting of key frames mode. In this case, animation keys will be created automatically when the position of the controllers changes. To activate this mode, press the button Auto keyframe. From now on, this button should be turned on all the time.

So let's start with the animation. First, let's manually create the first key frame. To do this, select the right foot controller, select the TranslateZ channel and right-click on it, select Key Selected. Without this operation, the next keyframes will not be created automatically.

Let’s put “+5” in the TranslateZ channel. Go to the 13th frame and set “-5”. As you can see, our leg began to move.

Now let's work with the foot. Let's go to the 1st frame and select the FootR channel; right mouse button; Kay Selected. Set the value to “-5”. Next, go to the 13th frame and set it to 5. The leg began to roll from heel to toe.

We do the same actions for the left leg.

Next we will make the legs move one after the other. To do this, select the right leg; hold down the Shift key; Let's press the left mouse button on the first frame and, without releasing it, select frames from the first to the 13th. Then, grabbing the arrows in the middle of the selected area, we shift the red stripe so that the first frame corresponds to the 13th. As you can see, now the legs move in turn.

Now let's make sure that in the first frame the right leg is behind. Let's copy the coordinates of the leg position from frame 25 to the first. To do this, select the 25th frame, right-click and select Copy. Go to the first frame and select Paste (insert). The leg will stand behind you.

Let's do the same for the left leg. Only now we need to copy the first frame to the 25th.

Click the Play arrow and see that the legs begin to move one by one.

Now let's set up the lift of the foot from the ground while walking. To do this, select the right leg, go to the 1st frame, put a key along the Y axis, go to the 7th frame, raise the leg; along the Y axis we will set the value “3”. In the 13th frame, set “0” along the Y axis. Let's see what happened - the leg began to rise.

Now you need to turn your foot a little. To do this, let's go to the 1st frame, select RotateX (rotation along the X axis) and set a key (Key Selected). We also put the key in the 13th frame.

In the 7th frame we will rotate the foot a little down and set the value to 50 degrees. Let's see what we got.

Now let's repeat the same for the left leg. Let's go to the 13th frame, set the key to Y. In the 19th frame, set it to 3, and in the 25th frame, set it to 0 again. In the 13th frame, RotateX - 0, at 19 - 50 degrees, in the 25th frame Let's set it to 0 again. The result is this kind of movement.

Now let's fine-tune the movement of the foot. As you can see by looking at the motion storyboard on our website, in the 4th frame the left foot is completely lowered to the floor.

Select the left leg, go to the 4th frame, and enter “0” in the FootL channel. We do the same for the right leg: in the 16th frame we set “0” in the FootR channel.

It turned out even better.

As you remember, when walking, your hips and torso rotate slightly, and in different directions. Let's reflect this in our walk.

Select the hip controller and rotate it in the 1st frame by “-10” degrees, set the key (Key Selected). Let's go to the 13th frame and set “+10” in the RotateY channel. Let’s go to the 25th frame and set “-10” again. Well, the hips also began to participate in the movement.

Now let's move the torso. Select the torso controller, go to the 1st frame and set the RotateY channel to “+10”. Let's put the key. Let's go to the 13th frame and set “-10” in the RotateY channel. Let's go to the 25th frame and set “+10” again.

As you can see, the legs, hips and body also participate in gait.

Now let’s remember one more point: when walking, a person leans forward a little and, due to the flexion and extension of his legs, rises and falls. You can see this on the storyboard.

Select the body controller (BodyControl), go to the 4th frame and shift the position of the body along the Y axis to “-0.5”, key. Now let’s go to the 10th frame and set “+ 0.5”. Next, copy the settings of the 4th frame to the 16th. And we will copy the settings of the 10th frame to the 22nd.

As we can see, Dunno began to “bounce” when walking.

Now let's bend the torso slightly forward. Select the body controller, go to the 4th frame, select the RotateX channel and set the key (KeySelected); tilt forward “6” degrees. Let's go to the 10th frame and set the RotateX value to 2 degrees. Now Dunno began to lean forward slightly when walking. Similarly, in the 16th frame we will put 6, and in the 22nd frame we will put 2.

Let's press the "Play" button and see what we got.

15:33 Let's select the torso controller. Please note that when you change from the 25th frame to the 1st, there is a kind of dip in the gait, a twitching. The reason is that in the first frame Dunno stands on bent legs, and in the 25th frame he stands straight. Although, as you remember from the storyboard, the first and 25th frames should have the same poses. This happened due to the fact that we do not have keys in the first and last frame. This shortcoming needs to be corrected; for this we will create a cyclic movement.

Click on the Graf Editor button on the left panel. The Graf Editor will open, a tool for fine-tuning animation.

Before we continue, let's configure the editor to allow us to customize animations outside of the keyframes we created. To do this, in the View menu, check the box next to Infinity.

As you can see, the red and green lines continued to the left and right. These lines describe the movement of the active channels of the torso controller, along which we previously set the keys.

Next, in the Curves menu, select Pre Infiniti; Oscillate. As you can see, the motion cycle has continued on the left side of the timeline. Once again the Curves menu; select Post Infiniti; Oscillate. The cycle of movement continued in both directions.

Click this button to close the Graf Editor. Let's see what happened. The movement of the body was smoother.

Now we’ll adjust Dunno’s head so that it doesn’t turn in different directions when walking. To do this, let's go to the front view using this button. 4 projections appeared on the screen. Move the mouse over Front and press Space again. Let's select the head controller, go to the 1st frame and rotate the head along the Y axis so that it looks at us. This will correspond to the value “-10” degrees. Let's put the key. Let's go to the 13th frame and set it to 10 degrees, in the 25th frame we'll set it to -10 degrees. As you can see, the head now looks straight ahead.

Let's now use this button to go back to the perspective view and see what happens.

Let's take care of our character's hands, because... Your arms also move when you walk. Let's go to the 1st frame, select the right hand controller and bring it closer to make it easier to work. In the first frame, let's move the hand down and a little forward. Let's turn the brush. Select all the channels of the right hand and set a key. Let's go to the 13th frame and move the hand back, turn the hand a little. The right hand began to move in antiphase with the left leg. Let's copy the first key frame and paste it into the 25th frame. Let's press the "Play" button and see what we got.

In ChannelBox you can round the values ​​of hand movement channels.

Let's now set up the movement of the left hand. But we will not manually enter channel values ​​in ChannelBox for the left hand, this is quite long. Instead, let's learn another Maya tool to automate this process - scripts.

Scripts are small programs of several lines that make certain actions easier. Using this button we will open the script editor – ScriptEditor. Let's select Open and find the Scripts folder in our scene. Here is the file mirrorPoseTool.mel, open it. The following text appeared on the screen. Select everything using the mouse or the Ctrl and “A” keys (hey). Hold the mouse wheel and drag the selected text to the Animation panel. At the same time, we will have a button with which we can run our script. Let's close the script editor window.

Our script allows you to copy coordinate values ​​from one controller to another. This can make our work easier. Select the right hand controller; then select the left hand controller; Let's click on the button for our script. As a result, the left hand takes the same position as the right.

In the first frame we set the keys: select all channels and press KeySelected.

As you can see, the hands began to move the same way. Now select the left hand controller, select the first 13 frames on the timeline and move them so that the 1st frame coincides with 13.

Now the 25th frame needs to be copied to the 1st.

Well, we have created a gait for our character. "Cheers cheers! Dunno learned to walk.”

Let's save our animation. File menu; Save Scene As; write Neznaika_Walk; Save As.

Analysis, of course, is analysis in Africa too. Although you can look at a running dog for quite a long time without understanding how to repeat all this on the computer. Agree that in any business you can achieve much better results if you have a plan for your work. I conduct the analysis approximately in the following sequence:

1) general research
a. for the duration of the animation
b. degree of participation of body parts in animation
c. basic distances when moving

2) primary actions
a. I start animating starting with those parts of the body that carry the immediate meaning of the animation. Most often, legs and the center of gravity, by which I pull the character in space, fall into this category
b. I try to learn as much as possible about the poses during the movement of the “main” body parts for this animation.

3) secondary parts
a. secondary details most often emphasize the significance of primary actions. This can be trembling, hesitation, as a consequence of performing one or another action. And if these are, for example, hands, then they are often auxiliary elements during movement.

Now I will demonstrate the analysis method using the example of character walking and running animations.

Walking

Introduction

Walking is the most common, so to speak, basic animation in our lives. There are different styles of walking, however, the technology for modeling the movement itself is practically the same.

Let's divide the animation into primary and secondary movements. By primary we mean the main part of the animation - the movement of the body in space with the movement of the legs, practically without the participation of the arms, head and spine (it is advisable to even hide the arms). This will give the animation a rough draft, after which you can move on to secondary movements: swaying your shoulders, controlling your spine, etc. details that give the character's movement more realism.

I will conduct a walking analysis on a Biped skeleton, personifying the most ordinary “earthly” person.

Let me immediately present some dimensions that could be used when animating:

1) step distance is approximately half the character's height

2) the duration of two steps is approximately 30 frames or one second.
Note that I insert the word approximately everywhere because the meanings are not a rule, but just a support.

Primary movements

Pay attention to the key postures when moving the legs:

< Рисунок 1 >

The 6 keyframes presented above for each leg, plus the movement of the COM, generally form the basis of the entire walk. However, there is a small problem here related to interpolation of values. Those. Simulating the animation of two steps may not be the end of the matter, because the last key frames should flow smoothly into the first ones, the animation should be repeated, maintaining constancy. The following may help resolve this issue:

Using any mixing tool that allows you to repeat a movement. This could be, for example, Motion Flow.

Creating 6 steps of walking animation, of which the middle 2 steps can already be fully used for exporting to the game, etc.

Notes on leg movement:

1) Remember that moving your left leg forward is accompanied by moving your right arm forward and vice versa. Such movement is necessary for a person to maintain balance.

2) When a person steps on his foot, his body goes down a little, but when he takes his foot out, he goes up. Moreover, the rocking should occur smoothly and periodically, as if drawing a sinusoid graph.

3) Don't forget about the width of your feet, because men often keep their feet wide (especially when it comes to warriors).

4) It’s rare to walk with your feet straight as bricks. No, it is advisable to turn your feet out. Even if he is clubfooted. At any rate, don't leave your legs as straight sleepers, that's unrealistic.

5) Before putting out his leg, a person steps on his toe and moves on from there. Add this detail to show the character's fingers. Even shoes sag in the toe when walking. As can be seen from the frames in Figure 1, a person steps on his foot from the heel.

There is an issue with hip rotation in CStudio. And the problem is that they can be lowered or raised, but they cannot be turned forward or backward at all. I'm talking about manipulation of the pelvic bone (Pelvis). Such a conflict can be resolved by rotating the COM in one direction (the legs should be “tied” to the ground) and in the opposite direction of the vertebrae. The latter is necessary so that the upper body “looks” forward.

Secondary parts

Notes on upper body movement:

1) One hand should be in front while the character steps on the heel. Then she begins to move backward, but she bends at the elbow and due to this she remains ahead for some time. Do not forget that the arm rotates when walking not only in the shoulder joint, but also in the elbow joint.

2) When leaning on the leg, the corresponding shoulder should fall. Following this, the spine bends in an arc. A similar process can be depicted in the following sequence. The leg is brought forward, the shoulder slowly lowers. The opposite hand is also brought forward, followed by the shoulders turning slightly. Then the weight is transferred to the leg (the character steps on it) and the shoulder sharply drops lower. At the same time, when viewed from above, the shoulders are equalized.

3) You can very effectively embellish the appearance of the animation by shaking your head while walking. When one leg “hangs in the air” at the level of the other, the head looks straight. Then the head begins to move slightly upward and forward. When a person steps on the heel, the head is in its original position.

"Walking"

Now, after all the listed notes, all that remains is to implement this movement in practice.

Load the scene from the "walk_start" file. You won't find anything special in this scene, with the exception of the usual Biped skeleton, which we will animate.

Create 9 steps with Walk Footstep equal to 18 and Double Support equal to 3. Rotate each resulting step 10 degrees in the Z axis (toes apart).

So, CStudio has generated sketches of walking for us, and we already have key reference frames, all that remains is to set everything up appropriately and add a little realism.

Let's move on to setting up the animation of the legs (turn on the "Auto key" mode):

1. The hip (Pelvis) in each of its frames must be rotated 10 degrees in such a direction that the leg on which the Biped skeleton stands in this frame is straightened.

2. Edit the position of the leg lifting off the ground (lift). To make it easier to “catch” the desired state of the leg, turn on the display mode for this very state. In all frames found for both legs, rotate the upper phalanges of the toes by 30 degrees along the Z axis. How can it be convenient to select all the phalanges at once? It is enough to select the foot (Feet) and transfer this selection to descendants by pressing the “PageDown” button on the keyboard. Now you can unfold them. As a result, the toes should fit tightly to the surface (the imaginary surface on which the character walks), and the heel should hang “in the air.”

The next list of keys for editing is the position of the leg in movement (move), namely a position similar to the 1st and 4th frames of picture No. 1. In such a frame, the leg needs to be raised up a little (2 units) and lowered a little foot (rotation 20 degrees along the Z axis) In each such frame and after the three subsequent ones, the tension value for the key should be set to 25 (it’s easier to use the “Normal Tension” utility for this). To quickly move through key frames, it is convenient to use the “key mode”, which is activated by the corresponding button.

3. Add a new layer in which we edit the zero frame:
- Calf – we rotate the leg bones from each other by 10 degrees (X axis).
- Lower your legs down until they are fully straightened (grab your heels and pull down), and then raise your center of gravity so that your legs are approximately at the same height as before (it is convenient to align them along the axis of the grid in a side view).

Let's now look at the result. To do this, go to the Time Configuration dialog and specify the Start time as 67, and the duration as 30. Now activate the In place mode and play the animation. The skeleton will walk in place until you stop the animation (or until the lights are turned off :)).

Return the time configuration to its original range, namely Start time 0 and length 138.

Upper Body Tuning:

1. If you have hidden the skeleton's hands, now is the time to show them. I don’t know how CStudio calculated the keys for you, but I have a small problem. It lies in the fact that the right hand swings much less than the left when walking, as if they have different trajectories. This kind of bug started to occur to me only in new versions of CStudio, but, in any case, it’s easy to deal with. If your Biped is also a little skewed, then let's correct it.

Make sure you are at the same level as the original layer. Select the entire left hand (all the bones of the hand) and copy its path (Track), then transfer the selection to the bones of the right hand and paste the path you just copied. As a result, the hands will move the same way. Select all the animation keys of the right hand (except the first one) and move them 15 frames to the left. That's all that was needed to fix it.

2. Go to the first layer, which we have already used to correct the pose of the legs, now we will use it to correct the pose of the spine, arms and head. If the Auto Key mode is turned off, reactivate it.
Lower your head 15 degrees (Z axis), and rotate your vertebrae along the Z axis as follows:

Spine at 5 degrees
- spine1 at -10 degrees
- spine2 at 15 degrees

Taken from the site: http://www.idleworm.com/
Translation: muxacko

Many people are afraid to animate their gait. Several actions are performed simultaneously and it seems that it is simply impossible to depict them all correctly. A single mistake on the very first drawing can ruin the entire scene. However, the process can be broken down into several steps, which will make the job much easier.

Any gait can be represented as a combination of four different poses:

• Contact
• Recoil
• Passing
• High point.

These four poses and a couple of intermediate frames between them form one cycle. Of all of them, the most important is “Contact”. Once you have drawn it, consider that 80% of the work is done. But if a mistake was made, it will be very difficult to correct it later. Therefore, if you “immediately” pay close attention to “Contact”, you will avoid problems in the future.

The picture below shows the front and side view of the contact.

Take a close look at this pose. You should notice a few very important details: In this pose, the foot is the farthest back. That is why it is the most important in the entire cycle. You can plan an entire sequence of shots simply by arranging adjacent poses so that they flow into one another.

Some animators believe that the most important poses are the Recoil and High Point poses, because the head is in the lowest and highest positions. This is not true. Contact posture is the basic building block of the entire gait cycle. If you don't start the cycle with her, you will be doomed. It is obvious.

The position where the right leg is in front and the right arm is behind (and vice versa) is called “counterpose”. With its help, nature takes care of maintaining stability while walking: one side of the body is balanced by the other. In good animation, such “balances” are always present. If the animation seems weak or unnatural to you, it's most likely because balances have been missed.

You can think of gait as a series of "falls." When moving, the character leans, “falls forward.” But his back leg always successfully moves forward in order to catch and hold his body until the next “fall”. Many basic animation techniques are used here, including those listed in the Bouncing Ball tutorial. Look at the front view.

I drew imaginary cylinders to show the direction of the shoulders and hips. Once again, while one (shoulder or hip) moves forward, the other moves backward, one end goes up, the other goes down.

This technique has another name - torque ("Torque"). It is a fundamental principle for creating good poses and should be an integral element of almost any figure drawing you do. Michelangelo always used torque in his sculptures, creating dynamic, lively poses, even if they were just people standing. One hip bears the weight while the other passively provides balance. The body is quite rarely symmetrical: in fact, symmetry can become your enemy.

Now let's look at the lift-off pose, the second main pose of the cycle.

This is a shot of the character pushing off the ground. He also depicts the lowest pose in the cycle. The character's arms are at their furthest distance from the body as a result of the force of the impact on the ground. The front leg is completely in contact with the ground, while the back leg has just left the ground.

Remember: the front part is directly under the body, supporting the weight. Too many beginners draw the take-off pose in such a way that the leg is not under the body, but several inches in front. Try to avoid this.

To keep things simple, let's skip the passing pose: it is practically intermediate. Let's look at the high point.

This is the highest point in the cycle. The character's body is maximally extended as he lifts his lead leg to move into the next contact pose. The heel of the back foot is already beginning to lift off the ground.

The three poses listed are the most important to remember. If you remember them well, you'll have a much better chance of getting a perfectly acceptable gait.

There are two main ways to animate a gait: "walk in place" or "walk through the screen". Below is one example for each style.

Why animate "walking in place"? This style has one important advantage: you have a loop for one step and you can move it around the screen, which saves both time and paper.

The main disadvantages of in-place animation are:

1. May be confusing.
2. The character's jumps may appear unnatural when they begin to move across the screen.
3. Sometimes it is difficult to position the character correctly on top of the background.

Let's start.

Take a look at the image below.

The loop keyframes are shown here. The most important postures are the contact postures, i.e. No. 1, No. 7 and No. 13. Use these images to coordinate your entire scene.

On a blank piece of paper, draw two parallel horizontal lines running down the page.

The character's feet will rest on them. They help avoid mistakes (the character may move up or down too much).

2. Draw the first contact pose.

Place a blank sheet of paper on top of the image with the guide lines. Now you are ready to draw the very first contact pose.

Place the heel of your right foot on the bottom line and the toe of your left foot on the top line. Let's put No. 1 and, because this is a contact pose, I usually write the letter "c" in the upper right corner of the page, just above and to the side of the frame number (This is just my habit. I don't know if anyone else does this. You will understand how useful it is and reduces confusion when about 12 drawings are scattered all over the table). Don't forget to circle the frame number, because... he is the key.

3. Draw the second contact pose, Figure 7.

If you have a backlight, turn it on. Put down a blank page. Put number 7. Circle. Write "s".

Remember that the second contact pose appears approximately half a second after the first. Now a little about how to position the second contact pose in relation to the first: the front foot on #1 will be the back foot on #7. In this case, the right foot just touched the ground on #1. In frames No. 1 to No. 7, she pushes off from the ground and is more or less in one place. Shot 7 will show her starting to lift off the ground. Look at the image below to see how #1 goes into #7.

The right leg (leading) touched the ground and the whole body moved forward. The left leg (back) has moved forward and is now almost touching the ground.

Sketch in light lines, trying to keep the overall pose as similar to #1 as possible. The only difference will be in the arms, legs and direction of the hips, all of which change frame #1.

Once you've roughly sketched out the second contact pose, you'll need to compare it to the first. Remove the #7 sheet from the pins and place it on top of #1. Now click these frames to make sure that the pose and position on both frames are the same. Neither one nor the other should be more or less. In addition, the angle of inclination must be the same, otherwise the character may appear to be limping.

Now that you've drawn these two poses, you can start inserting key frames between them. First look at what should happen.

All the main keys are present here. Contact, liftoff and high point. Keep these positions in mind when you start drawing them yourself. If, for example, you place position No. 2 too high, then it will be difficult to draw No. 5 correctly: the whole action will be too “stressful”: the gait will lack elasticity. Her gait will look too wooden for a cartoon character.

See what I meant:

The opposite is also dangerous: if you lower the take-off pose too low, the result can be too exaggerated, too unnatural for all but the most amazing characters.

Just remember that after the first contact, the character lowers into a take-off pose, then rises to the top point, then returns to a contact pose, after which the pattern repeats.