How do I get a character from running in place to moving forward?

# 1 08-04-2012 , 02:01 AM

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Join Date: Apr 2012

Posts: 5

How do I get a character from running in place to moving forward?

Ok so I made a character run in place and have about 60 frames of animation for that. Trouble is now Im not sure how to move him forward without the slidy feet. Is it a good idea to move him forward with his global or "all" controls? I tried doing that but of course i am not able to move him forward accurately with the naked eye so the distance is off everytime. I was reading about this earlier somewhere else and someone was explaining that I'd have to go to the graph editor and set some keys to linear or something to get rid of sliding but they werent too clear and Im not that good with the graph editor. Can someone provide a better explanation? Or maybe an easier alternative to moving the character forward so I don't have to reanimate it to get rid of sliding? user added image

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# 2 08-04-2012 , 02:26 AM

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Join Date: Oct 2011

Posts: 139

Fast answer: Group the whole character, move the the desired distance and in graph editor select starting and ending frame and set to linear..
user added image

Eyeball the distance till you get it right, if you can't then your cycle might be done incorrectly.

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# 3 08-04-2012 , 06:57 AM

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Join Date: Sep 2002

Location: Plantation, Florida

Posts: 1,568

Either that or just simply key the start/end points and then adjust distance until the feet don't slide. Or you could look at it mathematically. If the character's stride is 3ft per foot and it can travel at 6ft/sec, then he should be taking two steps every second. Set the grid to Feet and set the end point at the distance you want it to move in a given amount of time.

Ex.
6ft/sec x 6 sec. = 36ft.
Grid = Feet so 36 grid units = 36 feet.

@24fps
Start frame = 0
End Frame = 144

user added image

Dave Baer
Professor of Digital Arts
Digital Media Arts College
Boca Raton, Florida
dbaer@dmac.edu

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# 4 14-04-2012 , 02:22 AM

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Join Date: Apr 2012

Posts: 5

Thanks alot for the help guys. user added image

I'd have replied sooner however I was out of internet for a few days. I have another question and this is regarding the rig named "Max". For some reason my pole vectors for both his elbows disappear after a certain amount of time. I'm animating using a camera so when the camera is not on him at one part, he sorta deforms to all hell and then reappears in the scene in front of the camera at a later time because it doesnt really make sense to animate off camera characters so I just let him be. But during that crazy deform his elbow controls disappear. I tried going back to stepped keys but just dont know what the problem is or how to get the controls back. Everything else is there and fine. Any ideas?

P.S They still still show up in the outliner and they have pivots and stuff. Like when I select the move tool on them, the icon to move comes up and I can drag it around but theres no actual vector so it has no effect on the rig itself...ugh.

Last edited by honomaru; 14-04-2012 at 02:27 AM.

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