Arms bugging in walking animation

[Alexander5E7F]

 

Why do my arms move up so quickly? Also is there a way to make the walking more fluent?

[alank99101739]

I dont know... but what I would experiment is removing the stick between the shoulder and elbow. I worry when the handles and sticks get too close. There are strength settings in the walk behavior as well, and sticks in the feet might help with warping there (and maybe try removing the toe handle which i think bends the foot). It varies per artwork, so sometimes you just have to experiment.

[Alexander5E7F]

didn't work sadly 😞

[alank99101739]

Are you able to share the puppet? Use "export puppet" from the menu, upload to Google Drive and share a public link or similar? I only know of "fiddle and see if it can look better" - it is not a clear error or bug to fix, just "can it be better" which is less clear cut to answer I am afraid.

[Alexander5E7F]

Here is the puppet:

https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/09mBvutIamI7WstSGKb2e77cw#OldMan

[ElectroPuppet]

Are the handles tagged as elbow and wrist?
I'm guessing they are (but in a language other than english).

You also need to set your shoulder tags (and often hips and waist) to get a walk to work properly.

Hope some of those suggestions help you out.

[Alexander5E7F]

They are tagged as elbow and wrist. The shoulder/hip/waist tags are also set properly

Here is the puppet:

https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/09mBvutIamI7WstSGKb2e77cw#OldMan

[ElectroPuppet]

Hi Alexander,

You have the knees tagged in the body layer. When I deleted the knee tags, the puppet immediately walked without those jerks.

Your layer hierarchy and naming are not what I would recommend – especially if you want the puppet to be able to walk. To give you a few quick notes, I’d be inclined to have three states for your puppet;

+Left Profile

Standing Profile

+Right Profile

Inside each profile you should then have;

Head

Body

And then in the Body you should have;

+Right Arm

Torso

+Right Leg

+Left Leg

+Left Arm

Currently you have a right foot and left foot. I’d rename these as legs and then keep your leg tags all contained in that group. (If you require a more advanced puppet example that can walk left and right - there are many on the ElectroPuppet store.)

Hope that helps you out!

[Alexander5E7F]

First of all thank you for the reply!

Why do I need a standing profile when I can just check the stick Feet to bottom box? Also wouldn't I need 2 of them, one for each side?

[Alexander5E7F]

Also do you know how I can make the walking animation more smooth? Right now it looks like a pose is being highlighted...

[ElectroPuppet · Accepted solution]

Hi Alexander,

A standing profile allows you to animate the puppets arms and legs and then walk left or walk right when you hit the arrow keys.

If you only require the one walk view, you don't require them. You can just pin the feet as you said.

Personally, I find it important to have a solid structure from the start. That way I can add to the puppet without having to redo the rigging I've already spent time on. Currently you don't have your views inside your puppet folder. You should have your puppet name (in your case +Old Man) and then nested inside that your views. (So in your case +Left and +Right). At the moment, if you move those views into your puppet folder (+Old Man) you will have to rerig everything. That will be annoying - so I am trying to save you time by pointing out a structure that will allow you to add things to your puppet later without having to redo everything.

Regarding the 'standing profile' requiring left and right views. You can put different views under that structure. So nested under 'Standing Profile' you can have;
Left
Right

You can then set triggers for each view. So if I hit '1' the puppet faces left. If I press '2' the puppet faces right. I can move the arms around in each view. Then if I hit the left or right arrow key the puppet walks in that direction. Later you can add more, like a Front view, if you wanted. 

The walk is a prebuilt animation that has various settings you can play with. Stylistically your puppet looks like an 8-bit character. I'd be more inclined to create a simple two or three frame walk animation than use the prebuilt one. When I had a play with your puppet I found I really needed to make the head independent to stop the distortion - but then you don't have a neck so that made the head float. 

Of course anything I say is my opinion based on my own experience. Hope it is of some help 🙂