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Walking up stairs from a BVH or Mocap walk loop Tutorial

Sci Fi FunkSci Fi Funk Posts: 1,198
edited March 2013 in Carrara Discussion

In two parts.

PART 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNbWZTS_0EA
PART 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuPH54J0F3w

How to animate walking up stairs from a BVH mocap walk loop using Carrara but works with any 3D Application.
http://www.facebook.com/scififunk for more.

In this short (2 part) series I look at how to take any walk loop and edit it quickly so that the character walks up stairs.

This has several advantages from just changing to a preset walk up stairs loop (from your original walk loop), the major one being the character will stay "in character". i.e. all the hand and body movements are (almost0 the same.

What changes are the feet placements (the knees have to be raised, and the feet have to stay on a step for the right amount of time).

In part 1 I introduce the basic approach and the limitations with this system (no one system is perfect in 3d animation!).

Post edited by Sci Fi Funk on

Comments

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,533
    edited March 2013

    Very cool Mr. Funk!
    Keep these coming! I would "Like" the heck out of it but I don't have a Face Book login. Sorry.

    But I did add it to your growing list of tutorial video collections! Pretty soon I'll have to make a whole page just to hold yours!
    Thanks Steve!

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • Sci Fi FunkSci Fi Funk Posts: 1,198
    edited December 1969

    No worries.

    Thanks for the add Dartan. :-)

    More to come!

  • Sci Fi FunkSci Fi Funk Posts: 1,198
    edited December 1969

    Part 2
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuPH54J0F3w

    is a live editing session where I walk you through the process (pun intended ;-) )

    Also if you stick with it, I can show you the final scene at the end. Please like the video for more like this.

    Thanks.

  • argus1000argus1000 Posts: 701
    edited December 1969

    It just so happened that, for two whole days last weeks, I had to work (more like strained) on a character going up the stairs. I ended up with a solution just like yours. I took a BVH of a character walking up the stairs, deleted some stuff, added some keyframes of my own for the lower body. Stairs and character spacing differ, so they must be adapted. For the upper body, I just used another BVH of a regular walk cycle. It is far from perfect. If I had the patience, I could have gone on keyframing the position of the ankles, and the toes, and the shins, and the thighs but, for my purpose, I think the result fits my purpose (see video).

    http://youtu.be/z4yXhKTJA9k

    I like your tutorials very much, Scififunk. You are needed in this group. I can't wait to see your finished feature.

  • Sci Fi FunkSci Fi Funk Posts: 1,198
    edited March 2013

    argus1000 said:
    It just so happened that, for two whole days last weeks, I had to work (more like strained) on a character going up the stairs. I ended up with a solution just like yours. I took a BVH of a character walking up the stairs, deleted some stuff, added some keyframes of my own for the lower body. Stairs and character spacing differ, so they must be adapted. For the upper body, I just used another BVH of a regular walk cycle. It is far from perfect. If I had the patience, I could have gone on keyframing the position of the ankles, and the toes, and the shins, and the thighs but, for my purpose, I think the result fits my purpose (see video).

    http://youtu.be/z4yXhKTJA9k

    I like your tutorials very much, Scififunk. You are needed in this group. I can't wait to see your finished feature.

    How interesting! And a big THANKS for the encouragement over coming up with the same idea independently. That validates the approach in my mind.

    The other option is to use a BVH file of someone walking up the stairs, as I say in the video thats ok unless you have to combine normal walking with walking up the stairs, in which case the movement characteristic between the two loops could be quite different. Hence this approach.

    I watched your video and we both suffer from a slight "skippyness" in the walk as they go up a stair. I think the best compromise (unless you have lots of time to work on it) is to use camera movement and angles to disguise the walk.

    You can see this in action at the end of tutorial 2 where the crowd blocks some of the footfalls.

    Thanks for saying you like my tutorials. I'll continue to share the journey and hope bits and pieces of each video can be used by others here.

    Post edited by Sci Fi Funk on
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