Walk Cycle problems

[PFuerst]

Hey,

I just loaded a Character from a recent project, where we used DUIK to create walk cycles, into Character to see how it performs on setting up automatic Walk Cycles. I have come across some strange behaviors so far.

In my workflow I intended to use CA to do a stationary Walk Cycle, export it via a png Seq and than let the Character walk in AFX using some Expressions. Which works fine so far. However the Walk Cycles have some problems:

• at the start of the Animation the Character dips below the ground. This also happened in some situations where I used the keyboard to trigger the animation. In my case I could walk around the problem by rendering a 2sec Walk Cycle and ignoring the 1sec but in other situations this could be a major problem I guess

• my Character also moves slightly up and down where his feet should stay on the ground. At the start of the WalkCycle his heal touches the ground but during the phase where the leg should stay put it slightly lifts up and goes back down.

• his running style also looks really funny and probably can't be used in most situations (it is probably hard to tell from one image but trust me :-)) I guess to some degree it has to with the Character in general and his long legs, that are pretty tricky to animate, but maybe there can be done something against it in a future version of CA

Maybe some one from CA-Team can help here.

[DanTull]

I ran a quick experiment with a single layer puppet created from the screenshot and while the walk is wonky due to it being a single layer (warpiness around the hips due to the lack of warp independence and no arm movement because I didn't cut those parts out as separate layers), but the feet were contacting the ground at an appropriate level and didn't have any weird dips at the start.

In the Rig workspace Puppet panel, it'd help to see how you have your handles placed. Also, in the Walk Behavior section of the Properties panel there's a Handles section that can be expanded to see if the Walk behavior is finding all the handles. It will generally try to get by even if not all handles are tagged, but weird behavior can result.

Another option is if you could send me a link to an exported .puppet file for this puppet and its rigging, I could try to look at it and see what might be going on.

Thanks -- Dan Tull

[DanTull]

As an example, if I delete my Right Toe tagged handle, the puppet jumps a little with each step, so definitely check the Walk Behavior section in the Properties panel to see if any handles are missing. That may explain at least some of what you're seeing.

DT

[PFuerst]

I have uploaded the puppet file with the rig here: Dropbox - John_seite.puppet

If you need anything else just let me know 🙂

[DanTull]

Yep, got it. The rigging does seem fine (all handles well positioned and accounted for), so I'm not sure yet what is causing that bounce. We've noticed the footfalls sometimes have a "stompy" quality to them, so I wonder if this is a more severe version of that (possibly related to the leg length as you suggested, especially given the relatively shorter length of the feet).

I can also confirm that the first frame of my render has the issue you mentioned about being mispositioned below the normal floor level. I have an open bug on a problem where the first frame had a leg in an odd position, so it is possible this is some variant on that issue, but I'm not sure yet. The walk behavior does have some logic to pick a baseline based on analyzing the handles, maybe the render of the first frame is somehow happening prior to that initial setup.

Thanks for the report!

DT

[PFuerst]

No problem. Glad if I can help get rid of some Bugs

[samsonuik]

I have the exact same issue sometimes.  I also have the issue of walk right is fine but walk left doesn't recognize the floor and steps too far down.

[PFuerst]

I just noticed something with the walk behavior. If I start a walk with my Webcam on the Character tends to dip through the ground on start up as it was with the Character above. If I however disable the cam and start the Walk Cycle it seems to not go through the ground at all. I have to do further tests but maybe that is the reason/solution to this problem. Maybe someone else can do a similar test and report if it happens to you as well.

[angie_taylor]

Try switching off the Face Recording when doing your Walks as the Camera is likely picking up your movements and adding them to the mix?