Day 28 - Starting arm motions

What I did today:
Today I started on the starting positions of the arms.

I first started by opening the context data for the rig on the side which is labeled with a moving stickman. I then scrolled down and chose the Motion Paths menu. I then changed the end frames to 26 so it is just one more then what we are animating, and then pressed calculate. What this did was create a small figure eight looking graph in the viewport that I will manipulate into different shapes to get the motions for the arms.

I then did the same thing for the wrist control which also moves most of the arm around. In this screenshot, you can also see the small menu that shows up when pressing 'calculate' on the motion paths menu. In the small menu, I change the Bake location to Tails so it calculates the tail positions of the bones to get the small graph.

After creating the paths I started to move around the arm right arm to start before I did, however, turn off the auto keyframe function by pressing the circle beside the play buttons on top of the timeline, I did this t=so that I would not get unnecessary keyframes at the start that would later cause problems. I wanted this arm to start in the back sway and the other arm in the front sway motion. This took a while of adjusting the arms to get the right starting position that would look correct for my character.

I then worked on the second arm and put it in front of the body so that it is starting in the forward swaying motion.

I then turned on auto keying and then pressed I and created the first keyframe for the arms but only on the rotations for the arm instead of the entire arm itself.

Finally I copied and pasted the starting position at the end so that it would loop properly.

What I'm doing tomorrow:

Tomorrow I will start on the actual motion itself for the arms and the other positions for the arm in the animation.

Day 27 - Starting upper body movement

What I did today:

Today I started on the upper body for my character. I first started with the chest movements.

I wanted the chest to rotate back and forth like it does in real life when people walk. Because I already had a base for this with the pelvis, so I decided to start there.

I first went to the timeline and isolated the keyframes for the z-axis rotation for the pelvis. I then copied them by pressing 'Control+C'.

After copying the frames from the pelvis I went to the chest and then pasted them there. Because there needs to be an existing keyframe there to copy-paste a movement to that bone, I first made a keyframe on frame 1 by just pressing 'I' and choosing to make a keyframe solely on rotation.

I then went to the y-axis rotation for the pelvis and copy and pasted them as well. though when I pasted it the frames went back 3 frames so they would start on frame 1 instead of frame 4 like they are for the pelvis. To fix this I selected all the keyframes and went to frame 1. I then added a cycles modifier and pressed 'G+3' this moved all the frames over by 3 while also adding a perfect loop.

The problem I now had was that the upper body was now a perfect copy of the movements but what I needed was them to be copied and reflected so it moved opposite to the pelvis. To fix this I selected all the frames for the chest I had made and pressed 'Control+M' which then popped open a small menu where I then pressed the 'By Values over Value=0' This flipped all the keyframes making it so that the pelvis and chest moved in different ways.

Lastly, I added a small delay to the chest movements by selecting all the keyframes and moving them to the right by 1. I did this by pressing 'G+1' which moved everything over bey one frame, creating a small lag between the chest movements and the pelvis' movements.

What I'm doing tomorrow:

Tomorrow I will start on the arm movements, I will be doing just the normal back and forth sway for the arms.

Day 26 - adding more details to leg and waist movements

What I did today:
Today I added more details to the leg movements in the passing keyframes as well as some more waist movements that were shown in the tutorial I am using and adjusting some of the movements for the waist in the graph editor to fit my character better.

For the legs in the passing motion, I wanted it to have the movement that a real leg has. when walking where. the leg will straighten out a bit and move out just a bit before moving to the next step.

I first started on the down position on frame 4 and rotated the leg a bit so that it would be straighter when it lifts up.

I then went to the pass position on frame 7 and rotated the leg along the z-axis by pressing 'R' and the 'Z'.

After that, I moved the leg over on the x-axis just a bit. I did this by pressing 'G' and then 'X'.

After finishing the movements on the first passing and down frames I then copied the movements I made on the down frame to the foot and copied and reversed it onto the other leg.

I also copied the movements and reversed them for the movements I made to the foot on the passing position, but I made a mistake and pasted them on the wrong keyframe. I accidentally pasted them on the last high position. To fix this mistake I pressed 'Control+Z' which is the key command for undo. I then copied the movements again and pasted them and reversed them on the correct passing frame. 

For the waist I wanted to make it so that on the passing frame the waist moved over a bit, to give the look that the body was putting more weight on the stepping foot. To do this I went to the passing frame on frame 7 and shifted the waist on the x-axis just a bit.

I then copied, pasted and reversed the movement onto the other passing frame.

To make the waists side to side movements for the weight transfer look smoother I went to the graph editor and removed all keyframes that weren't on the initial contact frames at the start and end or any keyframes that were on the passing frame. I also added a cycles modifier to the motion as well so that the movement would loop nicely.

The last thing I did today was something that was not in the tutorial. I chose the pelvic control and wanted to fix its z-axis rotation. I wanted to do this because the waist was moving outwards on the walk a bit too much that made it look exaggerated and not fitting for the character. To fix this I went to the graph editor and chose the z-axis rotation for the pelvic control and made the movement smaller then they were before. I did this by pressing G and moving the contact position keyframes at the end and start downwards. I also did the same to the contact position in the middle but instead of moving it downwards I moved the keyframe up to make the curve smaller. Doing this made the movement less exaggerated and better for my character.

This is the lower part of the animation, which for now is finished. So far the animation is coming together very well and is looking like a good walk animation.

What I'm doing tomorrow:

Tomorrow I will start on the upper body portion of the animation.

Day 25 - Fixing the transition to the leg passing

What I did today:
Today I worked on the positioning of the foot and leg on the leg passing when the walk is going from one step to the next.

I first started on the down position keyframes because the leg from the contact position to the down position was moving forward, which it shouldn't be doing because when moving in a walk first the foot lifts up before moving forward while in the animation the leg was moving forward at the same time as the foot going up.

To fix this, I first undid the rotation to the ankle on the down frame by pressing 'Alt+R'

I then selected the general foot bone and rotated it so it would be as if the foot had just lifted up. I then moved it back to the same distance where the foot is on the contact position but just a bit forward. All of these movements were done on the first down position which is on frame 4.

I then went to frame 7 which is the passing frame for the leg.

The leg was too far back than where it should be so I moved it up and forward just a bit. I also canceled the movements the ankle had by pressing 'Alt+R', I didn't change it after that because the reset put it to a good position that fit the movement.

I finished the leg pass on one foot so to get it on the other foot in an easy manner, I copied the motions I did first on the down position for the ankle and leg, and then 'Shift+Control+V' which pastes the movement and flips it so it's on the other leg. I pasted the movements on frame 13 which is the down position for the other leg.

I then did the same for the movements I did to the leg and ankle on frame 7 which is the first passing frame and pasted and reversed it on frame 16 which is the opposite legs passing frame.

What I'm doing tomorrow:

Tomorrow I will do the final bits for the leg motions that are said in the tutorial which will be adding a bit more extra details in the foot movements and waist movements. After finishing up what the tutorial shows for the lower leg motions I will adjust some of the movements to fit my character a bit more.

Day 24 - Up position and more hip movements

What I did today:
Today I added the keyframe for the high point in the walk as well as worked on the hip movements while the character is walking which I learned to do by following the tutorial I have been watching.

For the up position, I first started by looking at the point the torso was at on frame 13 which I used as a reference. I knew that the high point in the walk needs to be just slightly above this point.

Then on frame 10, I moved the torso up just a bit more then it is on frame 13, I tested going higher than this but this height seemed the most fitting to the animation.

I then copied the pose on frame 10 of the high point and copied it onto frame 22 which is the high point for when the other leg is in the front of the body.

Next, I opened the graph editor and selected the pelvic muscle which controls the hips, for the hips, I am only focusing on the z-axis rotation which controls the sway of the legs and the y-axis rotation which controls how the legs turn when walking.

On the side of the graph editor, there is a small arrow, by dragging the arrow you get a f-curve tab.

Then on the new side panel, I clicked on the modifiers tab.

I then pressed the 'add modifier' and added a cycles modifier. What this does is that it repeats the movements of the hip threw out the graph which leads to a better loop. I did this first to the z-axis rotation curve.

For the y-axis rotation, I did the same thing but I then selected all of the keyframes in that curve and pressed 'G' and then 3 which moved all the keyframes for that rotation over by 3. I did this so that the down point in the weight of the legs corresponds to the body's down position in the walk cycle.

This is the animation so far, right now it is slow just due to the size of the character which slows down my frame rate.

What I'm doing on Monday:

On Monday I am working on the foot passing points, so when the foot is passing to do the next step in the walk. I will be adding more movement and adding more realism to the movement of those passing points.

Day 23 - hip motions and down position

What I did today:
Today I continued to work on the animation and. followed the tutorial, I moved the hips so that they would move with the legs when walking as well as making the down position from the reference.

I first started by tilting the. upper body forwards a bit because when humans walk we are leaning forward a bit.

I then rotated the pelvis forward a bit so that it would seem like the body was putting more weight on the contact foot.

I then tilted the hip to the side a bit just like when normally walking our hips shift because the weight of our body is shifting from one leg to the other.

I then copy and paste the pose of the upper body and hips onto frame 25 as well as copy, pasting and reversing the pose on frame 13.

Then to start the down position I first rotated the foot back down onto the ground, just like the reference.

I then copied this on frame 10 so that the leg wouldn't raise back up because it is not changed on frame 13.

I then repeated this on the opposite leg on frame 16 and 22.

For the down pose, I then moved the upper body down a bit for the down pose and make it look like the front leg was taking most of the weight.

I then copied the move onto frame 16 for the other leg.

What I'm doing tomorrow:

Tomorrow I will continue on finishing up the down pose and also work on the up pose as well. I will also keep following the tutorial, as even though I am using a different model then the one in the tutorial it is helping me with the movements, I am just shifting the movements to fit my character better.