It looks more like he is dragging his feet. Which is how i walk, so is not far from reality at all =)

Walking animation is done in two stages. Stage one is roughing out the animation with main keyframes (called pose-to-pose), stage two is tweaking in-between keyframes.

It looks like you executed stage one pretty well - the 4 main walking frames look good and in their place. Frame 1 should be both feet spread and on the ground, frame 2 is standing on one foot and second foot bent at an angle with sole slightly behind the other foot, frame 3 is once again both feet stepped down but with the other foot forward, frame 4 is like frame 2 but with feet switched, then loop to 1. Once the keyframes for all bones are set on those 4 frames, you did a simple interpolation (by spacing out the keyframes) and let Max do the curves for you.

Now you need to tweak in-betweens to raise his feet higher in transition from both feet on the ground to one foot on the ground and back, and to make his center-of-weight change its pitch and roll angles in response to step-downs. When the character steps down on a foot, the pelvis should change its roll angle to tilt the character (very slightly) in the direction of that foot. It looks like what you actually did is change the yaw angle on the chest in response to moving the arms - I suggest toning down the yaw angle animation and animating pelvis roll angle more.

Also when the character steps down, he should bend spine and neck very slightly down/forward, and then raise them back up when shifting weight over the next foot. Pelvis should also sink slightly during step-down, but it looks like you already have that going. Perhaps tweak it a little to make it stronger.

Well, and then there is foot-kick. You may notice when you walk that just before you step on a foot, it is rotated with toes pointing slightly down because that's the position the foot assumed after being lifted off the ground. So just before you step on that foot, you quickly rotate it to a horizontal position (maybe even slightly upwards). This whole deal ends up looking like a kick, so it's called a foot-kick.

The last thing to mention is the elbow-lock and knee-lock. Your knee locks when you step off one foot and shift your weight onto another foot. Same with the elbow, when you move your arms in response to walking - when the upper arm is rotated backwards, the lower arm is also rotated backwards and the elbow gets locked when the two arm bones are at 180 degree to each other. Then the arm starts moving forward again - upper arm rotates forward as does the lower arm and the elbow unlocks. It looks like you do have knee-locks but they are a little weak (you don't clearly see when the knee locks - looks too smooth). It also looks like you don't have the elbow-locks yet: there is no lower arm movement (or not much), only the upper arm rotates.

Quote:Original post by ValMan
Walking animation is done in two stages. Stage one is roughing out the animation with main keyframes (called pose-to-pose), stage two is tweaking in-between keyframes.

It looks like you executed stage one pretty well - the 4 main walking frames look good and in their place. Frame 1 should be both feet spread and on the ground, frame 2 is standing on one foot and second foot bent at an angle with sole slightly behind the other foot, frame 3 is once again both feet stepped down but with the other foot forward, frame 4 is like frame 2 but with feet switched, then loop to 1. Once the keyframes for all bones are set on those 4 frames, you did a simple interpolation (by spacing out the keyframes) and let Max do the curves for you.

Now you need to tweak in-betweens to raise his feet higher in transition from both feet on the ground to one foot on the ground and back, and to make his center-of-weight change its pitch and roll angles in response to step-downs. When the character steps down on a foot, the pelvis should change its roll angle to tilt the character (very slightly) in the direction of that foot. It looks like what you actually did is change the yaw angle on the chest in response to moving the arms - I suggest toning down the yaw angle animation and animating pelvis roll angle more.

Also when the character steps down, he should bend spine and neck very slightly down/forward, and then raise them back up when shifting weight over the next foot. Pelvis should also sink slightly during step-down, but it looks like you already have that going. Perhaps tweak it a little to make it stronger.

Well, and then there is foot-kick. You may notice when you walk that just before you step on a foot, it is rotated with toes pointing slightly down because that's the position the foot assumed after being lifted off the ground. So just before you step on that foot, you quickly rotate it to a horizontal position (maybe even slightly upwards). This whole deal ends up looking like a kick, so it's called a foot-kick.

The last thing to mention is the elbow-lock and knee-lock. Your knee locks when you step off one foot and shift your weight onto another foot. Same with the elbow, when you move your arms in response to walking - when the upper arm is rotated backwards, the lower arm is also rotated backwards and the elbow gets locked when the two arm bones are at 180 degree to each other. Then the arm starts moving forward again - upper arm rotates forward as does the lower arm and the elbow unlocks. It looks like you do have knee-locks but they are a little weak (you don't clearly see when the knee locks - looks too smooth). It also looks like you don't have the elbow-locks yet: there is no lower arm movement (or not much), only the upper arm rotates.

Wow, thanks for the constructive feedback! I will certainly keep these things in mind for future animations. I had already made a new animation cycle consisting of 16 frames prior to viewing your post. Luckily I had already noticed a few of the problems you mention. The knee and elbow locking is better this time around.