3D Animation Workshop: Lesson 59: Stepping Nicely | 2

Lesson 59 - Stepping Nicely - Part 3

After adding the foot lift, the complete cycle runs like this.

This isn't bad, but it's stiff. The true human walk is a rotation of the hip, with adjustments of the feet. We've been pulling the entire pelvis forward as a unit, rather than rocking it. Rotating the pelvis would cause all kinds of trouble with the IK setup, and would require large adjustments. But if we add some upper body movement, the result will look convincing even though it's not physiologically correct.

When one leg is forward, the entire side of the body is forward. So we rotate the spine and the entire upper body rotates as well. Take a look at this from above.

The only problem with this is that the head doesn't rotate when we walk, even though the rest of the upper body does. So we need to rotate the neck bone is precisely the opposite way.

The graphs for the rotation of the spine and the neck are mirror images, so that as the spine rotates one way, the neck compensates by rotating in the other.

Check out the result

Not bad. Even a small amount of upper body rotation helps. The next step would be to add swing to the arms, but I've run out of time. We'll go on with this topic in the next lesson.

To Return to Parts 1 and 2, Use Arrow Buttons

Previous Lesson / Table of Contents / Next Lesson
Created: Feb. 1, 1999
Revised: Feb. 1, 1999

URL: https://webreference.com/3d/lesson59/part3.html