Walking and Waving, then Continue Walking

[Dale_The_Bold]

I have an elaborate choreography with several different characters walking and talking, one is even flying. As one character walks near another, I want him to wave hello to the other. But, when I try to apply the keyframes for the hand, that hand removes itself from the walk cycle and no longer swings by his side, from that frame on. Is there a way to throw in this quick series of keyframes and then return that hand to the walk cycle?

[Dale_The_Bold]

After many hours of tinkering with this, I discovered that it is not only overriding all frames after the assignment of a single keyframe, but all frames prior to the new keyframe. In other words, if I move his hand at all anywhere in the middle of the timeline, it makes the hand start in that pose and stay in that pose for all frames in the entire choreography, regardless of where I make that keyframe.

 

So, in order to have the character wave, I would have to animate the hand waving, but then go back and manually keyframe every step he takes on his walk path. I could create a wave action and simply add that, but there are other subtle things I want to add to the choreography, just as a little turn of the head as someone crosses his path. But, to do that, I would wipe out all head movement in the walk cycle.

 

A:M didn't do this prior to the upgrade. Is there a setting I have to adjust in order to add extra, one-time movements to a walk cycle without wiping out the entire walk cycle's keyframes on that bone?

 

Or maybe as setting that would make A:M convert the walk cycle along the path to a series of keyframes? Then I know I could fine-tune bones as needed along the walk path and add all the subtle adjustments I want along the way.

[thefreshestever]

there´s an easy way to do this... just make a action for the waving, then you can blend the two actions in the chor together... your character will smoothly raise his hand during the walk, waving, and then the arm will go back to the walkcycle arm-position.... there´s even a video-tutorial on that, don´t know exactly where, but if you search the forum for walk and wave i´m pretty sure you gonna find it...

 

good luck...

[John Bigboote]

I would make a walk-cycle action, then in choreography set the choreography action to 'add' instead of the default 'replace' then animate the waving action there, and you will be able to see how the 2 actions interact. Copy and paste the keyframes from the 'normal' arm and hand positions at the end of the wave and the walk cycle should remain uninhindered.

 

THEN- you could save THAT performance as an action, bring it back in the chor and continue to add to it. Build it up.

[Dale_The_Bold]

Eureka! That was the setting I needed to change. Thank you for your help!

[Rodney]

Another discussion referenced this topic and I see an opportunity to close a loop and continue the discussion on transitioning from one action to another.

 

The video mentioned here is what I want to link:

there´s an easy way to do this... just make a action for the waving, then you can blend the two actions in the chor together... your character will smoothly raise his hand during the walk, waving, and then the arm will go back to the walkcycle arm-position.... there´s even a video-tutorial on that, don´t know exactly where, but if you search the forum for walk and wave i´m pretty sure you gonna find it...

The "Path Ease (walk, then wave)" video can be found at the very bottom of Hash Inc's Video Manual page. There are three additional videos at the bottom of that page. Don't miss them!

 

The Video Manual (TaoA:M) page:

http://www.hash.com/2007web/vm.htm

 

Direct link to the zip file containing the Walk then Wave tutorial accessible at the bottom of that page:

http://www.hash.com/ftp/VM/pathease/pathease.zip

 

 

Get up to date on this discussion and learn more by reading through Chris's question on Actions in a Choreography. Note how the use of screencaptured images in his discussion refine the issues in question and help others see what you are seeing. Note to self here animation:masters; use a little screencapture in your workflow every day. Record yourself at work.

 

There is a lot of good information, links and videos to be found in these discussion so... don't miss it!