Reply To: How to Deal with Knee Pop in a Walk Cycle?
@rontarrant Walks are pretty fun. Once you’ve got the body mechanics down you can arrange the feet and hips in so many fun ways to bring a character to life. In saying that, for a more vanilla “natural” walk I would be careful putting the lifted foot ahead of the posted foot at passing. Reason being is your spacing. Notice it is even at the back and gets really close toward the front. This is indicating that its slowing down as the foot impacts. Think of the foot like the bouncing ball exercise, as the foot comes down gravity takes over and the foot should have wider and wider spacing. This happens in fewer frames than the bouncing ball but the principles are the same. Take a look at some walking reference as well. The arc of the ankle is usually more S shaped than it is C shaped. (See below). I also noticed on your animation in your down positions, the trailing foot is already lifting off the ground. Try to keep that planted at this point. The down position is not only a way for our bodies to absorb the impact of this controlled fall of a step we just took, but it is also an anticipation. It stores up energy to prepare for the full weight transfer of the passing position to follow. But that foot physically can’t move until then or the body would topple over. I hope that makes sense. I made a horribly drawn picture below. Get a little more twist on the hips along the z axis and I think you’re well on your way to a clean walk. Keep going man!
