Walk cycle and the use of Constraint

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After finished Ballie’s walk cycle, I’d like to try to adjust the rig on a new character, so I choose bonnie, one of the models in UAL asset. Bonnie is a cartoonize style character, her body shape and proportionality is unlike a normal person. One of the references I used is the same as Ballie’s walk cycle reference.

John McMurrough: Week 8 - Ballie Walk Cycle Planning in 2020 | Animation walk cycle, How to plan, Cycle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynXadXE9UjU&list=LL&index=1and I found a tutorial to teach how to adjust the cartoonize style character. It is from Alessandro, this tutorial mention some point need to be noticed when you animate the character’s arms and legs.

The final reference is a Female Standard Walk video,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8Veye-N0A4. These references help me to transition Bonnie’s rig.

I start from Bonnie’s leg. The first key is 1, every 3 frames set a pose.

After finishing Bonnie’s leg I start to adjust the tangents on the curves. To make the animation look smoother. but I am still learning the tool on Graph editor, Sometimes I feel a little confused about how to use them.

After animation Bonnie’s leg, I move to her pelvis. When I was adjusting her leg I am already rotation her pelvis on the Y-axis. The leg will influence the pelvis movement. the second movement is on Z-axis. The body will shift to the supporting leg, her hip will bend to the supporting leg. I smooth the curve then move to her next part.

this is how the waist curve look like.

I adjust Bonnie’s chest rotation through the controler on her waist, the rotation is on Z-axis. the way her chest turn is opposite side of her pelvis.

The curve of Bonnie’s chest.
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Bonnie’s pupil won’t move with her body, the pupils won’t stay in the middle of her eyeball. it looks really weird, so I add transition on her pupil, try to let the pupils stay in the middle of her eyeball. except for the situation, when Bonnie looks at the bouncing ball in her hand.

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The basic T pose hands pose is unnatural under the walking cycle. So I adjust the rig on Bonnie’s hands, make them look more comfortable.

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I think arms are much easy to adjust, there are four controllers on Bonnie’s arms that need to be noticed. the shoulders controller, upper arm controller, elbow controller, wrist controller. the arms motion trailer is the opposite side of the leg motion trailer.

Constraint

I use parent constraint in this video. when bonnie hold the ball set a keyframe, and set the blend parent to 1. cause I let bonnie throw the ball while she is walking, so the ball not always holding in her hand. Move to the last keyframe bonnie holding the ball, set the blend parent to 1 again. Moving forward one keyframe sets the blend parent to 0 and moves the ball on Y-axis, let it jump up. move to the last keyframe bonnie didn’t hold the ball, set the blend parent to 0. Moving forward one keyframe sets the blend parent to 1, moves the ball on Y-axis let the ball fall back to bonnie’s hand.

Next time I would like to try other mod in constraint.