joseph.
The end result hasn't turned out too badly. it moves, it looks like a walk and all that but can I give you a few pointers to try and improve your method of animating?
1. Buy the book I refer to in my signiture if you really want to animate with ease and understanding
2. Read it.
Failing that here's a quick snapshot of what you need to be thinking about...
1. Movements in walks (or any animated sequence) is more than 'just' the legs and arms, bending and flexing in opposition to each other, you have to think about the whole of the body and how each limb connects to the thorax and how the movement affects the balance (of the figure) and how it READS to the veiwer (silohettes [I'm looking at the sword guy here...)... The Head is another crucial frame of reference - how it moves in and out as the arms roll forwards and backward.
a. consider for example - the shoulders, and how they open and close as the arms move back and forward
b. consider - thehips and how they rotate and pitch and roll as the legs open and close
c. consider - the relationship between the shoulders and hips and the twist that coils and uncoils throughout the movement
2. Keyframing, Tweens and working in 'twos' or 'threes' - and TIMING - When you begin to make your character move work in rough.
a. start with the 2 'extremes' (these are the frames where the left foot and right foot are at there most open [i.e. the full stride]) - sketch it dynamically... make it look powerful or tentative or whatever mood you're trying to convey.
b. then move to the 2 'CROSSOVER' frames - (the frames where 1 foot is firmly planted and the other is bent and passing 'through' the other) the legs make a kind of shape like the number 4 [think about it] - you can mess with these crossover frames to give different overall 'vibe' to the animation (see the book) - but you're basically doing the same as the extremes...
c. for all keyframes described here you should consider the MASS of each shape, be it a foot, a calf, a knee, a thigh, a belly, a chest, a hand, a forearm, a wrist, an upper arm, the shoulder mass, the head mass - when I say MASS I'm talking about the VOLUME of that form... if you want convincing movement that doesn't distort over time then the volume should remain consistent - you can alter it's shape and scale according to style (stretch and squash) but the VOLUME would remain the same
d. once you have your keyframes nailed - you can then start the TWEENS... this is where you overlay the frames ontop of each other and begin making marks to determine center points of swings or arcs of movement of the limbs - again, take each one at a time... think in terms of a pendulum... and time and how to achieve 'ease in' and 'ease out' of movement over the frames... Ideally - you should begin with 'just' marking the center points for now and experiment with different postiions along the arcs when you get more experience.
e. finally, once you have a straight forward 8 frame loop that's moving nicely, fluidly, but perhaps a little stiff? or evenly timed? This is where you can then go and add more frames and 'just' tweak those extreme frames a touch, adding a bit of 'over-reach' and 'break the joints' to give more 'snap' to the movement... as well as breaking the timing of the movement so you get ease in and out on the arcs movement (think about a pendulum)
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Here's a popeye sample from a sequences I knocked up when I first joined this forum - this sequence was made in this manner described above and took me about 1 hour to complete. (I'm not blowing my trumpet here as I know the sequence is less than perfect but i'm just trying to illustrate that once you have a process and understand form and mass then you can knock out stuff relatively quickly) - I also did a clever trick by combining the overeach into the tween thus reducing frames to 6... there's also example of 'crossover motion' and 'sine wave' motion (on the neckerchief) - again... important if you want to achieve good movement across a sequence...
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<Disclaimer> - I'm aware this sequence uses 'selout' (or whatever the hell you guys call it) - but from my POV when needing to develop LOTS of frames for stuff then it's a great process, like it or not it's my preferred method because it's quick!
<disclaimer 2> apparently it's not selout... hmmm... my understanding of the term is obviously incorrect... Ptoings helped me out here...
