Walk Cycle

Status: First pass complete, second pass in progress

Rig Credit: Joe Daniels' Body Mechanics Pack, Jill

Software: Maya 2018

Second cleanup pass

1/28/2018

I'd just finished the Global Game Jam (check out our game here!) and was about to collapse into bed, but I was riding a weird high and I was eager to start this challenge. It's something that had been on my mind for a while, and I wanted to get started.

I took some time to study Richard William's book, The Animator's Survival Kit, and also viewed a "Standard Female Walk" on YouTube for reference. This particular video bothers me for some reason, there seems to be something off about her feet, but the frame count and slow motion was helpful. I also spent a fair amount of time pacing my apartment and observing how each joint felt as I was moving around. 

After about 3 hours, I thought I had a passable blocking pass. (Pun completely intended.) Pardon the video quality, I recorded my screen with my cell phone to share my progress with a friend. It wasn't in my mind yet to publicly document this challenge with in-progress playblasts. 

1/29/18

After the day's work, I sat down to clean up the walk cycle. The video below is an in-progress shot about 1.5hrs into the process...

And this was the result after another couple of hours. (Same video as above.)

I left it here for now, but I'll return to figure out what's looking funky in her movements. 

1/31/18

I took some reference video of myself after struggling to find a video I liked for the walk:

A couple thoughts as I compare the video to the animation I made: 

• More arm swing is necessary, I should look at videos of pendulums 
• The feet are mistimed, it feels like there's a jerkiness that is hurting the timing 

2/1/18

I studied the video and took an additional stab at cleaning up the walk cycle, addressing curves and cleanup.