FMP 5 Walk Cycle Animation

Character walking animation is the most basic for Maya animation.I have made walk cycle animation as early as the term 1. Now, my graduate career is coming to an end. I need to make it again for review and consolidation, and also to test my progress.

Reference

The basic law of human walking is: the left and right feet alternately move forward, driving the trunk to move forward. In order to keep the body balanced, the arms of the upper limbs need to swing back and forth in conjunction with the bending and stretching of the two legs.
In order to maintain the center of gravity when walking, a person always supports one leg before lifting the step with the other leg.
Therefore, in the process of walking, the height of the head must move in a wave shape. When stepping out, the top of the head is slightly lower when both feet are on the ground, and when one foot is on the ground and the other foot is lifted and bent forward, the top of the head is slightly higher.
Also, in the process of walking, the stepping leg stretches from the ground to the front, and the knee joint in the middle must be bent, and the ankle and the ground are in a curved motion line. The height of this arc-shaped movement line has a lot to do with the manner and emotion of walking.

When the character walks, a very important point is the movement of the character’s chest , shoulders, crotch and legs, which is also the difficulty.

Since the stepping movement is both up and down and left and right, so its motion trail will show a ∞ shape——which called *Figure 8*.

The trajectory of the crotch on the Y axis.

As the character’s center of gravity shifted during walking, the crotch X axis reached its maximum value in the seventh frame（during one step）.

The rotation of the crotch is related to the offset of the character’s center of gravity, so the character’s rotation (x-axis and z-axis) reaches the maximum in the seventh frame.

In the first and thirteenth frames, the character’s legs are moved the most, so the Y-axis of the crotch reaches its maximum.

Tips：The rotation of the chest is the opposite of the crotch, but their maximum and minimum timing is the same.

Chest movement
Y-axis: As the crotch is moving up and down, the chest will also move up and down under the drive of the crotch (small amplitude)
Tips: The timing of the start of the chest movement should be one frame slower than the start of the hip movement

The curve of the crotch

The movement of the arm: It can be understood as a pendulum movement. It is worth noting that when the character walks, the arms not only swing back and forth, but also have a certain swing range inside and outside.

Process