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1368aa
1368aa
Inspiring
September 16, 2019
Question

Troubleshooting a Puppet Walk Animation

  • September 16, 2019
  • 3 replies
  • 1469 views

I have some files here for a puppet that has three positions and a pose in a swap set. His walk animation looks good for his right (default) profile, but it doesn't work for the "run away" swap and stopped working for the left.

Here are the files:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fvlgs9onus32u4b/Chibi_Duke.ai?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vww7jvepnqldz4s/Duke_HelpForums.puppet?dl=0


Other questions:
•Why does his upper arm stretch downward during the walk animation? ✅
It looks like the walk animation uses predetermined proportions, which this style obviously doesn't have. I fixed it by putting "fake" wrist tags below the real wrists to trick it into thinking the proportions are different.
•I want to have him twirl his cane. Can transformations be animated? Or do I have to use cycle layers? ✅

Thanks alank99101739! 

This topic has been closed for replies.

3 replies

1368aa
1368aaAuthor
Inspiring
September 18, 2019

 

alank99101739
alank99101739
Legend
September 16, 2019

Have you tried playing with the various walk strength properties? Might help with the unusual character proportions. Sorry, have not had a chance to look st puppet yet.

1368aa
1368aaAuthor
Inspiring
September 17, 2019

So the reason those views didn't move at all was because they were not tagged as left profiles, I think. Now I have to figure out why they are still having all these other problems. Keep in mind, the right facing profile is perfectly fine. Current problems for the "Run Away Profile" figure swap:

 

•No bending at arms even with arm ik. This may have something to do with how he is holding a sword in one hand and a cane in the other. I get the feeling that I am not going about having characters holding objects the right way. Might be affecting the shape of the arms. I've experimented with a variety of layer orders and groupings.

 

•The head is disembodied. The legs, too but that problem doesn't mystify me as much.

 

•And, of course, all kinds of crazy distortions. I don't mind making more layers independant, as it is a stiff puppet style, but that just seems to lead to more things being disembodied Something related to all of these problems is that I find it really annoying how I can't choose which layer is attached to which. I will get at most two choices from the drop down menu.

 

Some more work and experimenting has lead to a new update on the puppet if any one has time to look at it: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4juy6xtw6gc51wv/Duke_Version2.puppet?dl=0

 

Any help from anyone is appreciated. You guys are heroes.

alank99101739
alank99101739
Legend
September 16, 2019

Hard to say on walk problem without seeing rigging hierarchy, and even then can be tricky to diagnose over forums. Might need to share puppet (export puppet). But can try if you can show the rigging hierarchy panel.

 

Not sure about the arm. But there is the IK Arm behavior you can add to get better control over arm bends. Might be worth reading up on.

 

You can certainly animate transformations. So you could add a transform behavior to the cane. You can then record the new rotate value then use a blend to spin it. Episode 9 and 11 might have some hints here on blends https://extra-ordinary.tv/2018/10/22/project-wookie-a-beginner-youtube-playlist/

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