Ninth walk cycle attempt

I finally realised what was wrong. Not just with the walk cycles, but with everything. Disregarding the fact that ball bounces are generally more straightforward, I'd just been really struggling to get a grip on walk cycles. It's a bit hard to explain but I've just been feeling like I was missing something. The inbetweens just weren't coming together and I really didn't know why I couldn't grasp it. It's a relatively simple concept, so am I just stupid?

Then I had a bit of an epiphany. It's arcs. I've not been basing them on arcs of movement. I've always been aware of the idea that all movement is based on arcs, but I never really thought about it until now. It's nice though, I feel as if the penny has finally dropped and I'm excited!




Okay, so it looks terrible so far, but all the while I was working, everything made sense, and that's what excites me. It's currently way too fast, so I need to add a few more inbetweens to cushion it out a bit. The frames aren't really aligned properly, so it's a bit jerky as well.

I did a number of things differently this time 'round. To work out the inbetweens I flipped back and forth between the two keyframes and marked out with a small X where certain parts of the body (e.g. elbows, knees, heels) were on each keyframe. I was then able to see the arc between the two points, allowing me to plot each inbetween far more accurately. I really concentrated on leading the feet with the heels to give them more life. I think it looks better so far but I need to tweak it so the heel strikes the ground more directly.

The ridiculous arm swing was my attempt at making the arms a bit looser. Rather than having the lower arms follow the path of the swing exactly, I tried to have them flick upwards as they started to swing backwards... as you can see I ended up taking it a bit too far! He looks a bit of a prat but I've found it syncs quite well with Billie Jean by Michael Jackson...

I'd already drawn out the keyframes before thinking in terms of arcs so I was kind of saddled with flawed poses to begin with, making getting decent inbetweens almost impossible. If I'd started from scratch and really worked out the mechanics of each keyframe beforehand I think it may have come out much better. But it's a start. I think that once I've cleaned it up a bit and finished off the inbetweens it might be quite nice as a character walk.