Alternate walk cycle available

[Noisycricket]

I had a chance to play with the walk_cycle a month ago, but had deleted the main part of the work on accident, however, since i still had an early edit, I worked on it for a few minutes tonight and came up with something a little more natural looking. Though still not ideal, I uploaded what I had in md5anim format to model_src. Its in the "Noisycricket" folder.

[Noisycricket]

When i tested this, my laptop had an unusually low framerate, making it hard to see the animations. Now on my desktop, i see some changed need to be made (leg twitching and torso movement), which i'll work on a little bit tonight if I can.

[squill]

i see little to no change besides this walk cycle and the current one. It has less up & down + side to side movement of the hips which makes it look a bit stiff ingame like hes floating. For game animations i usually have to exaggerate the ups and down a bit to show it back ingame. Especially because the IK system on legs somewhat limit the ups and downs.

 

If your going to make an alternate walkcycle i would suggest create a more casual walk where the arms and legs swing in a relaxed way and it could also be a lower paced movement (48 fps).

[Noisycricket]

Yeah, I just think the current cycle is a little too unnatural, mainly the up and down movement is too much, making it look almost like an older person walking down a slight grade, clutching a railing. Since we have so many willing animators, we might as well make the walk_cycle, which is so prominent, as good as we can I figure. I have some time coming up and will be able to spend a day on it rather than 5 minutes.

 

I'd like us to have a more casual walk too.

[squill]

You need the up and down movement (which you also see on a real person) otherwise the character will look very robotic. It conveys the feeling weights, the only people who have very little up and downs in their movements are usually woman or gay men (the feet are closer together).

 

The only thing i would improve in the current walk would be the hand position (more closing), which you did on your version, and removing the pops in the knees. Optional would be to improve the hip movement but that's because the rig is lacking proper hip control which isn't easy to fix other then recreating a rig.

[Domarius]

Noisycricket, just beware that animations have to be more exaggerated than reality because there aren't enough subtleties to make it "feel right", unless you're doing motion capture.

[Noisycricket]

Walk cycles are hard! Still working on it...

 

Yeah, i noticed that an up and down movement that looks too exaggerated while the model isn't moving ( translating), is almost hard to notice while moving.

 

Squill, i noticed in your walk cycle, the weight is shifted completely over the passing foot, rather than the planted. I assume walk36.ma is the one in the game. Hard to notice i guess, but its there.

[squill]

Walk cycles are hard! Still working on it...

 

Squill, i noticed in your walk cycle, the weight is shifted completely over the passing foot, rather than the planted. I assume walk36.ma is the one in the game. Hard to notice i guess, but its there.

 

yes walk cycles are one of the hardest things to do. When i get a character or finish a rig the first thing i do is animate a walkcycle because a walk lets you use all body animation controls.

 

With the weight shifted you mean the hips are on the opposite side of the planted foot?

Like in this example, the hips are countering the upperbody and then shifts over to the foot that makes the contact.

http://www.aibmaya.com/wp-content/uploads/...kreference2.png

 

This also happens in the current walk but because the hips lack a certain control to independently move the hips around it's harder to achieve the result so you have to counter animate the back which still makes it look like its moving the torso along.

 

i've pickup some better methods to create an animation rig but we won't be switching to a new skeleton just to have to this control.

[squill]

i checked it again in maya but your right. I reversed the side to side movement of the hips

[Noisycricket]

Surprisingly hard to notice in-game. Doom3 does a disappointing amount of rounding off im noticing.

 

I just uploaded a another version of the walk to my Noisycricket folder in model_src for anyone to use. Its still not finished, Im just starting on tweaking the up and down movements, but its going to take a lot of in-game testing to get finalized i think. This one has a little to much "swagger" I think. I've thus far pictured this thief universe to be full of rampant crime, corruption and power struggles, and I'd eventually like to make a walk reflecting a proper balance between cautious determination and boredom. However, as the red brick poll reminds, opinions vary, so i'll try and upload different ones as I change them to provide a variety of movements.

 

EDIT: after looking at it in-game again, its still far from ideal, but im going to keep working on it.

[squill]

think in terms of what kind of character is walking, a civilian, guard on patrol or just taking a break. From that you can pour more ideas into a walkcycle. I also use certain movies for reference on how people walk or just go to a train station or other public place and observe people walking.

[Noisycricket]

Added another walk cycle with some leg fixes and an exaggerated up/down movement ( as suggested ). I think its a little too much but im going to start work on the drunk idle again. Its created with xyzprecision at .0001 (i think all you have to do for that is edit the first line of the file with tSVN to .0001?)....

[greebo]

I just tried the walk with exaggerated vertical.md5anim and I think it's slightly better than the original walk. They look a bit more stiff in the backbone area, but at the same time it looks more natural or "casual". And the pauldrons look a bit awkward (they are not moving? not sure).

 

I'd suggest we use both walk cycles? Doom 3 can randomly choose between walk cycles, but I'm somewhat cautious to put that in so close before freeze. I think we need to test that and put it in for the first update.

[Noisycricket]

Hmm, that is the wrong one. I need to log my changes better. The correct one I just uploaded to my folder as walk_swagger.

 

Multiple walk_cycles sounds fantastic. I've been using this alternate walk cycle for a month now, haven't seen any problems what-so-ever. When the A.I. are coming down a dark hall at you, it looks very real to me. I noticed Squill's walk cycle has the same thing going on with the unmoving pauldrons. However, he updated that walk_cycle with a newer one recently where he *might* have done something with them?

[squill]

Hmm, that is the wrong one. I need to log my changes better. The correct one I just uploaded to my folder as walk_swagger.

 

Multiple walk_cycles sounds fantastic. I've been using this alternate walk cycle for a month now, haven't seen any problems what-so-ever. When the A.I. are coming down a dark hall at you, it looks very real to me. I noticed Squill's walk cycle has the same thing going on with the unmoving pauldrons. However, he updated that walk_cycle with a newer one recently where he *might* have done something with them?

 

the pauldrons won't move along the shoulders because the walk is not using the last rig version. The reason is because we use the proguard as our base animation model which doesn't have the pauldrons. But I've updated the walk to the latest rig version.

 

Your walk looks nice but what looks off to me is the way his feet touch the ground. The toes are pointing way to high after the contact pose(first heel contact). Try to walk like that yourself you'll see it feels unnatural and tiring to walk that way. Only a big guy or someone having his shoe noses already pointing up for instance would rotate his heel that high to make that kind of steps. Other then that it looks good.

[Mortem Desino]

The toes are pointing way to high after the contact pose(first heel contact). Try to walk like that yourself you'll see it feels unnatural and tiring to walk that way. Only a big guy or someone having his shoe noses already pointing up for instance would rotate his heel that high to make that kind of steps.

I don't know: that's suspiciously how I walked while I was in a drum corps.

[squill]

I don't know: that's suspiciously how I walked while I was in a drum corps.

well our guards dont march nor drum and we're talking here about regular walks. although it would be nice to have some musicians ingame.

[Noisycricket]

Added walk7, slightly more realistic.

[Noisycricket]

Walk cycle reference:

 

http://vimeo.com/6222175

 

(none-too-shabby music either.)

 

Even better, with slow motion at the end:

 

http://vimeo.com/6217750

 

Its interesting how different they all are.

 

 

@Squill: I see your point about the foot angle now that i've open this up again, yeah it was too high, thanks for the feedback.

[Noisycricket]

Added walk 7.5, an improved version of 7. Getting there...

[Springheel]

I'm not sure linking to an alternate walk cycle in the TTLG forums is a good idea. Swapping animations is a pretty detailed exercise, and not something we want to encourage 24 hours after release.

 

Where is the md5anim file for this animation, btw? I haven't even seen it yet.

[Noisycricket]

Not sure what you mean, its just a differing animation. It uses the same joints and everything, so its just a matter of swapping out one 50ish kB walk.md5anim for this another. Have you not tried it yet? Try it now (if you have time and inclination) and tell me what you think, im interested in feedback.

 

Simply go to the model_src folder, and into my Noisycricket folder, then copy the walk7.5.md5anim file from there to the md5/proguard folder and rename it walk.md5anim.Then start TDM and open test/walk

[Springheel]

I'll give it a try in a few minutes.

 

its just a matter of swapping out one 50ish kB walk.md5anim for this another.

 

The end users have their files all in pk4s, don't forget. You'd have to tell them which one to unpack and then make sure they pack it back up again properly (D3 can't handle certain zip formats). And then what happens when they next update?

 

Either way, it hasn't even been 48 hours since release. I don't think we want to encourage replacing official files so quickly. If the new walk animation is good, then it should be included in the next update.

[Noisycricket]

I plan on telling people that they must put the old walk file back into the proguard folder before they use the updater.

 

Theres a couple issues here that haven't been discussed and perhaps need more discussion. Like how are we going to handle the inevitable changes people are going to want to make with all of these resources available

 

Perhaps more time is needed to figure out how the updater is going to mesh with secondary mods.

 

Although, try the walk cycle, I spent a lot of time on it...

[Noisycricket]

BTW, I was under the assumption .pk4's were not compressed and that you would simply rename them to .zip to open them window's internal zip program, then simply replace the files or use Winrar.