how to make a walk cycle to a runnung cycle?

dinosaurmad87

Hi everyone I'm having some difficulty working out how to make a walk cycle turn to a running cucle, I've created a walk cycle on my Arizonasaurus model but don't paticularly fancy redoing the animation just to make it run.
Is there a way to speed up my walk cycle to get it to run or what?

Chears, Ian :)

chorse

I do not know Arizonasaurus specifically, but run is animated differently than a walk. It's just not a matter of timing, it's also spacing. In a walk the feet or paws do not leave the ground, in a run they do; in a run the distance covered is longer etc.. The passing position poses are also different. You could try just speeding up the walk animation, but it would not look natural. To really do it right you probably have to create three cycles, the walk, transition, and run. You should also research on the internet the animation positioning, timing and spacing for bipeds and quadrupeds e.g. for 24fps animation a normal human walk cycle is about 12 fps, a fast walk 8 fps etc. Good luck.

dinosaurmad87

Ok thanks for the information I actually just tried an animation the same way the walk cycle was but instead of 10fps I did 5fps instead but doesn't seem much different really :( oh well I'll try a different approach do you recon 3fps a step would work?

chorse

Are you just trying to adjust the fps in the DS timeline? In DS adjusting the FPS does not increase or decrease the speed of the animation, it just re-adjusts the key-frames. This is not the way most other programs such as Poser works, but it's how DS works.

Allow me clarify my previous post. When I said 12 fps second, I didn't mean to adjust the fps in DS. What I meant was that one step should be done within 12 frames (within a 24fps animation, for 30 fps animation as in DS's default that would equate to around 15 frames). If you wish to increase the speed in DS then you would have to create the each step within 8 - 6 frames (7-10 frames in a 30fps animation). If you want to just see a current animation sped-up just render out the video, and play the video at a different speed. It would probably be easier to do this on a post-processing video editor level. In addition, you could also just create an aniBlock from DS keyframes and run the individual aniBlock walk cycles at a different speeds in AniMate2.

I am not sure how large an Arizonasaurus is, but you should also keep in mind that larger/massive characters move slower relative to smaller ones, but cover more distance with each movement (timing & spacing).

I still don't think it would look natural just by speeding it up, but if its looks fine to you, that's all that counts.

dinosaurmad87

Arhh I get you now as my clip will be 2 secs should I get the frames to 120fps as obviouls 30 x 4 is 120 isn't it.
So then I can do 15fps a step like you said?

chorse

Yes, but in DS you cannot change the speed settings in an animation by changing the fps of the timeline. You will have to use another program like Poser to create the animation. You are correct in what you said in your previous post ref. fps. That's what you are doing when playing back the rendered scene and you increase the speed by 1.5x, 2x, 4x etc. in whatever viewer you are using i.e. windows Mwdia player, Quicktime, VLC, etc. In DS, if you want to create a faster motion in the original animation scene, you have to keyframe the motion sequence within a smaller number of total frames (not fps - frames per second ) i.e. 12 frames, 8 frames, 6 frames etc. Keyframing the sequence within 6 frames would result in motion that is twice as fast as Keyframing the sequence within 12 frames; in a 24 fps animation.

Just remember in DS you cannot change the animation speed by changing the fps in the timeline after the animation is completed. You should be able to change the fps to change the speed, and this is the way the re-timing works in most other programs, but not in DS.

dinosaurmad87

Ok I'll give this ago. Chears.

JonnyRay

chorse said:

I do not know Arizonasaurus specifically, but run is animated differently than a walk. It's just not a matter of timing, it's also spacing. In a walk the feet or paws do not leave the ground, in a run they do; in a run the distance covered is longer etc.. The passing position poses are also different. You could try just speeding up the walk animation, but it would not look natural. To really do it right you probably have to create three cycles, the walk, transition, and run. You should also research on the internet the animation positioning, timing and spacing for bipeds and quadrupeds e.g. for 24fps animation a normal human walk cycle is about 12 fps, a fast walk 8 fps etc. Good luck.

Please don't overlook this excellent advice. All you will really get by adjusting the timing of the animation is a faster walk.

Look up a video of race walkers and compare that to a video of marathon runners to see what chorse is talking about.

Zojitzu

Normally walking has one foot on the ground at all times. Running tends to have both feet leave the ground at some point during the cycle. Also a 24fps walk will produce a step for each foot. A step for a run can be pretty much half a step of a walk.

You'll probably make more work for yourself trying to convert a walk cycle into a run cycle. Much easier just to start from scratch.