DawnBat
April 11th 2005, 05:47 PM
Hamster Pt. II: Walkin' Awesome!
Section 1 of 3: A leg up.
Before Hamster can wander around defeating the evil Troll Army, he must be able to walk on his hind legs like a proper student of Rodent Ju-Jitsu. So, naturally, we will need to make a walking animation. Walking happens to be one of my strengths, as I learned to animate walking before I found any books on animation! What do you know, though, I was doing it right. So I have undeserved years of experience, as opposed to year for my other animation techniques.
One of my uber-cool secrets is the simple fact that when a person is waliking, both feet are doing the exact same thing at different times! So, you see, I only have to animate one foot!
Okay, peoples, here's the technical diagram:
[attachment=1]
Numbered, for your convenience.
Now, first thing to do is to ignore the even-numbered frames. They are in-between frames. The frames you want to worry about are the odd-numbered frames. These are the bread and cheese of a walk cycle, as far as the feet are concerned.
Frame 01 and Frame 05 are the Heelstrike frames. At this point in the animation, one foot will be coming down to meet the ground heel-first, and the other will be just about to leave the ground toes last. The character's weight will be shifted more forward here than at any other time (remember that, it will be important when we do part 3.) So, Frame 01 is Heel Striking, and Frame 05 is Toe Bidding Farewell. Goodbye, fair earth! I wanted Hamster to move fast and Ninja-like, so I extended the leg all the way in both cases. Also, Hamster-feet work different than human feet, with the "heel" being at the ball of our feet. This is evident in the way the ankle joint is way up in the air when the heel hits the ground in Frame 01.
Frame 03 and Frame 07 are the Crossover frames. The weight of the character is only slightly forward of his center of balance here, and one foot is halfway through its journey to the rear whilst supporting the weight. The other foot, the one in Frame 07, is on its way forward ASAP, so it can be in position when the first foot leaves the ground. Because it isn't too much fun to stand on no feet...
You could get away with just these four frames, but it is so much more elegant to fill in frames inbetween them. Sonic the Hedgehog has eight for his Walk-Cycle, so eight sounds like a good idea to me. One In-between (or 'tween) frame for each key frame...
Now comes the fun part. Using MSPaint, you can paste from file, so it's a simple matter to make eight frames with both feet in position. Then, color it, join it up in a reasonable manner, and Half-Pixel it, and you have this beautimous walk-cycle:
[attachment=2]
Hang tight for Part II, Section 2, about arms: It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!
Section 1 of 3: A leg up.
Before Hamster can wander around defeating the evil Troll Army, he must be able to walk on his hind legs like a proper student of Rodent Ju-Jitsu. So, naturally, we will need to make a walking animation. Walking happens to be one of my strengths, as I learned to animate walking before I found any books on animation! What do you know, though, I was doing it right. So I have undeserved years of experience, as opposed to year for my other animation techniques.
One of my uber-cool secrets is the simple fact that when a person is waliking, both feet are doing the exact same thing at different times! So, you see, I only have to animate one foot!
Okay, peoples, here's the technical diagram:
[attachment=1]
Numbered, for your convenience.
Now, first thing to do is to ignore the even-numbered frames. They are in-between frames. The frames you want to worry about are the odd-numbered frames. These are the bread and cheese of a walk cycle, as far as the feet are concerned.
Frame 01 and Frame 05 are the Heelstrike frames. At this point in the animation, one foot will be coming down to meet the ground heel-first, and the other will be just about to leave the ground toes last. The character's weight will be shifted more forward here than at any other time (remember that, it will be important when we do part 3.) So, Frame 01 is Heel Striking, and Frame 05 is Toe Bidding Farewell. Goodbye, fair earth! I wanted Hamster to move fast and Ninja-like, so I extended the leg all the way in both cases. Also, Hamster-feet work different than human feet, with the "heel" being at the ball of our feet. This is evident in the way the ankle joint is way up in the air when the heel hits the ground in Frame 01.
Frame 03 and Frame 07 are the Crossover frames. The weight of the character is only slightly forward of his center of balance here, and one foot is halfway through its journey to the rear whilst supporting the weight. The other foot, the one in Frame 07, is on its way forward ASAP, so it can be in position when the first foot leaves the ground. Because it isn't too much fun to stand on no feet...
You could get away with just these four frames, but it is so much more elegant to fill in frames inbetween them. Sonic the Hedgehog has eight for his Walk-Cycle, so eight sounds like a good idea to me. One In-between (or 'tween) frame for each key frame...
Now comes the fun part. Using MSPaint, you can paste from file, so it's a simple matter to make eight frames with both feet in position. Then, color it, join it up in a reasonable manner, and Half-Pixel it, and you have this beautimous walk-cycle:
[attachment=2]
Hang tight for Part II, Section 2, about arms: It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!