Walking issue

[flashawd]

Hi - another walking question. I referenced exercise 5 "Take a walk" - and created the 4 poses at 00:00:00, 00:00:05, 00:00:10 & 00:00:15 then I copied the frame and mirror pasted. The walk cycle looks good. When I bring the character into a chor and apply the walk action and have it repeat lets say 10 times. Each time it repeats there is a 'jerk" motion when it starts over, so there isn't a smooth transition between the last frame 00:00:15 - going back to 00:00:00. Is there something I am doing wrong... some setting I didn't set or something?

 

Thanks again - Eric

[Bruce Del Porte]

The last frame should of course be 00:01:05, I will assume that is a typo. The answer is because when you finish with the starting pose and transition to next iteration of the action, you get the same pose for two frames in a row, 00:00:00 and 00:01:05. Really you want the last pose of the action to be the starting pose minus one frame so the transition will be smooth. The way you do that is to edit your action by keying all bones at their position on frame 00:01:04, deleting all the keys on frame 00:01:05, and making the action length 00:01:04. This way, there is a smooth transition into your starting pose and it only lasts one frame.

[heyvern]

I always thought you could just copy the first frame to the last frame and then make the action length one frame short at the end so it matches up? It's been awhile since I did a walk cycle, so maybe I'm wrong.

 

-vern

[flashawd]

Hi Bruce - yes that was a typo Thanks for your answer I will try now.

[c-wheeler]

I read both answers to this question, and it took me ages to realize that they were both almost saying the same thing.

I think,though, that the prize for the most succinct answer should go to Vern.

But....

 

Sometimes you get a pop on an action cycle caused by differences in the entry/exit position on the motion channel drivers(time line graphs).If we look at one bone in an action cycle I can illustrate what I mean.

In the first picture,Action 1 was made using copy/paste in the normal way.It lasts from 00:00 to 01:24, with 01:23 being the set range end.

If you look at the entry and exit angles for the bias handles on the Y axis motion channel on first and last point in the time line graph on the second picture, you can see that the angle made does not match.In a cyclic action this can give an annoying blip at this point-specially if its something like the hands or feet in a walk cycle.

The second action is almost identical, but without the blip.This was made by copying the first 16 frames to 01:24, and a sort of reverse process from frame 00:00 to -00:08. The motion graph now approaches the cp from both sides in the same way.If you just key the bones at their position on frame 00:01:23, deleting all the keys on frame 00:01:24, you still get the spline problem.

Feel free to ignore this, its subtle,and comes under the heading of "Tweaking"

[flashawd]

Chris - I appreciate the info - thanks for taking the time to explain and make all the printscreens - it is much appreciated.