Hi All,

Have you seen the Cartoon Motion pack? Some brilliant walk/run cycles, etc. THIS is the type of animation I'm interested in creating. The feet are solidly planted for each step.

Are there any tutorials for how these were done?

Is it as simple as applying the principals outlined in the "Feet Sliding Through Floor: Fix it!" video by Kerzal?

Or is there more to it because the motion is horizontal instead of vertical?

So many questions... Does anyone know the answers?



- Ron T.

RiViT,

No sliding feet. Just apply the motion.

sjonesdc :hehe:

STILL LEARNING!!!

Thanks for the reply.

What I meant was, I'd like to find out how to do this type of non-feet-sliding animation from scratch, do my own motions. The package doesn't cover every gait I want at my disposal. Anyone know how?

- Ron T.

I misunderstood what you were asking. I'm sure one of the more experienced iCloners will be able to answer your question. I'm still learning myself.

sjonesdc :hehe:

STILL LEARNING!!!

Hi Ron

Most of the motion files are created using 3rd party software such as 3DS Max, MotionBuilder etc using mocap data which is then converted to iClone. There are some documents in the Developer Center that describe how to convert BVH and Biped animation data for use in iClone. You can find them in the section entitled New Whitepapers and Guides.

                                                                

Peter
Forum Administrator

www.reallusion.com

Thanks, Peter.

I got the impression that a different method was used, partly because the foot motions are more precise, but also because of the way the ad copy is worded on the Cartoon Motion Vol. 1 page. It says:

"In contrast to other iClone Motion Libraries made with real motion capturing - Cartoon Motion pack is made by professional animators using key-frame animation techniques."

It's these "key-frame animation techniques" I'm interested in, whether they're done in iClone itself or in some other package.

Are they documented, and if so, is Reallusion willing to share that documentation?

- Ron T.

If you interested in "key-frame animation techniques" than you may be interested in this article "Pose to Pose Pop-Through Animation".

--------
Igor

Thanks for jumping in, Kurzal. Your reply makes me realize I need to clarify what I'm asking for...

I know how to do pose-to-pose animation on paper and in other 3D software. However, I have not been able to produce satisfying results in iClone.

So what this post is asking is this:

What step-by-step process did the animators use to produce the walk cycles for Cartoon Motion Vol. 1?
What software did they use (if not iClone)?
What were the workflow and procedure they used to avoid foot slippage?

I watched the video you posted, Kurzal, on how to keep the feet from sinking into the floor. Do you know of a similar procedure that would keep the feet from slipping?



- Ron T.

@ RiViT , whatever is clever ! ;) basically iclone is pretty bare bones when it comes to keyframing, but there is a beauty in that, it makes the user pay more attention to detail and develop higher quality keyframing skills that don't depend on plug ins to fix - no short cuts lol. For the most part everyone tries to find bvh's from other sources that are already tight, such as the CMU library, but that is a labor of conversion a big one!. The advantages you will have with iclone is that you can create motions faster with less clicks, iclone does tween, and you can import vidoes easily and quickly to do your own tracing conveniently in contrast to the more expensive softwares, which it is a fabulous tool in that respect. But it does have it's weaknesses from promoting such simplicity, such as sliding feet and hands going through bodies... There are tricks around those bloops , one of which is to reset the keyframe start point and re - path the motion, meaning the character keeps moving, but you kill the forward path of the character and reset it with iclones path, which results in a much smoother walk.
This is also why the best option in general, is to use the iclone backstage motions as they are already tweaked to work smoothly in iclone with less work on the users behalf, but even then you may have to tweak them depending on how deformed your character is vs the character it was tweaked on with the developer.


for example, a short fat guy scratching his leg, may look like a tall skinny guy scratching his stomach. or reaching for a cell phone in a tall skinny guys pocket, may end up looking like a short fat guy trying to rip his heart out because the tall guys motion was made for longer arms / reach . there is no advanced algorhythm that retargets the motions to a new rig, .you have one rig that gets applied to all iclone standard characters ergo, tweaking is inevitable when using various sources.

ps - the new cartoon pack ad looks like that character is flipping the bird at me!! :crazy:

• My Spotify  My Twitter  My Twitch
  
• My NFT    My Marketplace My Blog
  
• Music Sync Licensing

☯🐉

"To define Tao is to defile it" - Lao Tzu

I agree with everything you said, except I think you are being too kind to the CMU library. :)

General Picture - animating now to life itself(tm)
Member of Content Wizards