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7: Character Pantomime

Walking

31st August 2019

info License: CC-BY
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Published by

Pablo Fournier

In this video Pablo goes over the animation principles seeing in the past videos applying them to a walkcycle animation on a more complex rig.

Please download the blender file here

32 Comments

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Akindeji Adesokan

17th April 2020 - 04:28

how come there aren't any other step by step tutorials like the walking biped module?

Pablo Fournier

25th November 2020 - 17:59

@Akindeji Adesokan we decided to do it like this because having the step by step was taking too long to do (the biped was a shorter animation), so it will be more boring

Gemma María Rull

20th September 2019 - 21:26

Now, that's great for a manly walking. Will we have a modelling lady walking on heels explained too?

Pablo Fournier

23rd September 2019 - 13:49

*@Gemma Maria Rull* Maybe! but I won't make the video reference for that xD

stukove

4th October 2019 - 11:37

will you talk about how can people go further and deeper in animating after these tutorial ?

Pablo Fournier

10th October 2019 - 11:38

*@stukove* Hi, We have some more animation tutorial that we wanna do, in the future we will make some tutorials about how to animate a shot.

Talhat J

25th October 2019 - 11:21

when ca we expect them? *@pablofurni*

Pablo Fournier

28th October 2019 - 12:19

*@Talhat J* not sure! we are a bit busy right now

Cédric Born

9th October 2019 - 20:43

Hi Pablo, thanks a lot for this great serie. One thing I don't understand is the link between a walk cycle and a real animation in a scene. Say a character is walking in a scene then stops, then walks again faster or a bit differently. Do you just use your walk cycle as a reference or do you import it in the scene as an action then repeat it in the nla and offset the root bone ? I remember Hjalti mentionning in a video that animating the root bone is a big No-No, but in this video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y--OYM2uDvI they seem to say they animate the root bone. I'm a bit confused. Can you tell me what the best workflow from walk cycle to real scene animation is ? Thanks forward

Pablo Fournier

10th October 2019 - 11:36

*@Cédric Born* Hi!! We usually do the walk cycles in preproduction to define how the character is going to move and later use them as reference. In my workflow I use the walk cycle as a guide, to see the main key poses, but in a real scene I don't use them, I animate all from scratch, because of what you said, there is different rhythms and I feel more comfortable animating it by myself. I only use them if the shot it is a simple walk that doesn't require changes, in that case can be useful.

But in case you want to use the walk cycle in a scene there are two ways.

  1. you make the walk cycle moving forward, repeat the cycle by setting the keyframe extrapolation (shift+E in the graph editor with the moving forward curve in the pelvis, feet and hands if they are in IK) and later putting in the modifier cycles the before and after as repeat with offset. This works only to repeat the cycle without any change in rhythm.

If you want to change the rhythm you need to copy and paste and manually adjust the curves to be repeating until you want to change and animate it.

  1. you make the walk cycle in place and you move the root, in this case is ok to move the root.

All depends of the needs of the shot

In the video, the root is the pelvis control, usually is call root also and the big controller on the floor can be called master, just different ways to name the bones, but in this case I'm 100% sure he is talking about the control that move all the torso.

Hope this helps you a bit xD

Cédric Born

13th October 2019 - 22:17

*@pablofurni* wonderful, Thanks for the explanation. Now I think I get it.

Diaa Homsy

24th March 2020 - 23:19

Hi there! I'm really enjoying these videos, they're so useful. Though, I would like to learn how to rig my own character the same way as you do. Do you have some videos or maybe some suggestion where could i find such things? Thanks

Pablo Fournier

26th March 2020 - 18:52

*@Diaa Homsy* Hi!! we are going to have something rig related soon, but it will be more like a breakdown, but i think not a full rig tutorial at the moment.

Akindeji Adesokan

17th April 2020 - 04:11

Are there any plants to do other animation tutorials after this or are you done with the fundamentals series

Pablo Fournier

25th November 2020 - 18:01

@Akindeji Adesokan for the moment we have this on hold, we are busy with the sprites project

Tsihoarana Randimbivololona

8th December 2020 - 19:06

It was an amazing series. Thank you so much, I learn so much with it. I have a question, the rig that you use in all of your animation, does it comes all with rigify or do you use a custom one. Like creating your constraints and commands. Because it definitely look so different from the one generated with rigify.

Pablo Fournier

9th December 2020 - 11:34

@randimby01 Hi!! Glad you like the tutorials! the rig is a simple custom rig with bones, nothing really complicated

MrTako

4th March 2021 - 22:42

Hi thanks a lot for this amazing series!

MrTako

4th March 2021 - 22:43

@MrTako is there any plans to make another series with a higher level of difficulties? Acting , pantomime more complex and else?

Pablo Fournier

5th March 2021 - 15:18

@MrTako At the moment we don't, we are busy with the Sprite's project

Vitalii Bosakevich

8th March 2021 - 15:37

Great course! What I've managed to do following it, https://youtu.be/HQevVaOaShA

lamcilaktheo

21st December 2020 - 22:41

I'm not sure to understand why the tutorial series took super long simply on the concept of a ball bouncing but then only like 2 videos on actual animation of a character/walking cycle, why not focusing more on the part people actually want to use the most ? (i'm not criticizing but i just don't understand the thought process behind)

Pablo Fournier

3rd February 2021 - 10:14

@lamcilaktheo thanks for the feedback, if we go back making more videos we will keep it in mind

dima.panchuk204

30th March 2021 - 17:17

@lamcilaktheo Ball bouncing was so long because it was used to explain different basic concepts of animation. It's just easier to introduce you to squash & stretch, arcs, timing and rythm using the ball.

Theeverflare

3rd February 2021 - 05:33

So this is great! i enjoyed it! but i have a question on the delaying. Is the delaying used by putting spacing down or moving the keyframes off by 1 frame? because this is what thought on the use delaying.

Pablo Fournier

3rd February 2021 - 10:13

@Theeverflare you can do both, depends of the moment, i always try to create a visual delay already on the pose, and later maybe i will delay it 1 fr if i feel is needed.

Theeverflare

3rd February 2021 - 22:47

@Pablo Fournier Cool, just need to confirm it. Thanks.

coolyan2016

4th June 2021 - 22:38

Hi, would there be a tutorial on animating facial expressions?

Pablo Fournier

7th June 2021 - 09:23

@coolyan2016 At the moment we are busy with Sprite fright, maybe in the future we will do some

Rey Sommerkamp

9th September 2021 - 07:14

Hi Team Blender. I have a question about Character Animation. How can I mirror my whole character Animation  Is there a simple button I could use?:-)

Pablo Fournier

9th September 2021 - 11:14

@Rey Sommerkamp hi!! now the only way that comes to my head is flipping the poses one by one, takes forever, but i think we don't have that tool atm

Rey Sommerkamp

14th September 2021 - 12:28

@Pablo Fournier ok thanks!:-)