Hi,

I posted this question to New Users, but the question has changed a bit so maybe it belongs here. I have a walk cycle on a path in a choreography that should last about 45 sec. all together. The path part, with ease at three locations where the character stops and interacts with objects by means of layered Chor Actions is 33 seconds, plus or minus a bit of tweaking. I'm not at the end of it yet, I'm blocking in the Chor Actions. So far so good on all that.

Anyway, I've noticed with my walk cycle action object, there's a crop range which is 1 sec. (in this case) a Chor range (which is 33 seconds right now) and a cycle length. Sometimes the repeat item shows up, and sometimes not. The first time I dropped the action in, it set the repeats automatically.

The walk has stride length, so to slow it down, do I just work on the path ease? I read somewhere that you can adjust one of the other Properties and the stride will be re-timed. Does "Cycle length always match crop range? Why doesn't the "repeat" property always show up? Do I have to select the walk cycle in a certain way (e.g., be in a certain window?)

It's working, I just want a better idea of what the parameters are.

Simply put, there are two kinds of walk cycles. The ones that are paired with a path constraint, and the ones that aren't. The pathless cycles make no use of the stride length--the model will simply walk in place, and the animator can move it around in the chor as she sees fit. Slowing down this type of walk cycle is done by changing the repeat length.

On the other hand, a walk cycle with path constraint activates the stride length, which in turn determines the number of repeats automatically. This makes sense if you think about it--if the character has a stride length of 30, and the path is 300, then it'll take ten steps to reach the end, regardless of the speed. Therefore, the only way to slow down a constrained walk cycle is to change the total length of the action (i.e. the red bar).

Alternatively, of course, you could make a new walk cycle with a smaller stride. But that's a whole other idea...

Ah, I didn't know you could use a walk cycle without a path. My character's stride is already quite small, if anything I'm afraid it looks a little too fast in places.

Thanks for this.

Seana

Keep in mind that if you add a walk cycle without a path, it'll be difficult to keep your model's feet from sliding across the floor. Not impossible, but difficult.

Yes, I've worked that out (she says, shaking her head) so I'm trying to adjust the path ease to see if that helps. I understand how that works (how to make a character pause) but it still looks like she's sort of running to the stopping point. I guess I need to look at a longer stride?

On a path walk cycle is the cycle length equal to the length of the orginal action cycle or the chor. action (path)? If I reduce the cycle length to 1 to match the walk action she glides along the path and I imagine takes one really long step to the first pause point in the ease. If the cycle length equals the path length, she runs almost. Perhaps I should redo the walk cycle. She doesn't have a long stride, she just walks slowly with smallish steps. On a loop, the walk cycle looks like how I want, I just don't want her to run.

Seana

A longer stride will make her look more like she's running. Try a shorter stride and a longer action length.

On a path-based walk cycle, the number of steps is fixed--it's determined by the length of the path. You can make the cycle last longer by changing the action length, but that'll just make it look like bullet time. It won't make your character take shorter steps, which is what we do when we walk slower.

Right now her stride length is 17.63, the action is a 1 sec. cycle and the stride range is 20 frames (because frame 20 marks the end of her stride. I will try and redo the action for longer than 1 second.

I understand how to put stride length in, but when I first learned how to do it, I don't remember needing to adjust the stride range. To me this seems to make her step 20 frames long which is too fast.

It doesn't matter how long the action lasts in the Action window. The speed of the walk in the Chor is determined by the length of the path and the duration of the action.

You can't change the stride length number, since there's only one correct stride value for any given walk cycle.

I'm just wondering if perhaps my stride length is off, I saw a thread about that, and the walk is too fast to really tell if there is slipping, but I will check as soon as I slow it down. Once I get it slowed, I'll watch for slipping and perhaps redo it.

The path is the length it needs to be to get to all the different areas of the room. I am confused about whether I

a. make a new walk cycle action based on greater than one second, figure out stride length, etc. and drop that in or

b. make the choreography action shorter or longer. There's a speed/distance relationship I'm not seeing here, like initially thinking I should make a longer stride so the cycles look less like a mincing run. But by duration of the action, do you mean the walk cycle action object, or the Chor action that the path and ease are governing? I'll have to shift all of my other actions if the latter, but I guess I can do that.

Do I shorten the path? That means not getting to some areas (the only way I can think to make a shorter path is a smaller spline with fewer CPs.

Something's gotta give. If your character has a stride length of 20, and your path is, say, 120, then the total number of steps will be 6, period. If those 6 steps are happening too fast, then your only option is to increase the duration of the Chor action, which will force your character to make those same 6 steps, only more slowly.


Yes, you are confused. I repeat: the duration of the walk cycle action is irrelevant. (Although round numbers can help make the math easier.) Given a path length and an action duration, the Chor walk cycle length will be calculated by simple arithmetic.

Simply put: If your character is destined to take 6 steps in 3 seconds, then each step will last .5 seconds, no matter how fast or slowly the character was walking in the original walk cycle.

at the moment, my walk cycle is just dropped onto the character, and is the same length as an action I've called "blocking" which is the path ease and walking. I read in one post an example of a Chor action containing a walk cycle, should I be putting the 1 second walk cycle inside another Chor action? But I also saw another "walk + other action" sample file where "Resolute Walk" sat on the top level, followed by the path with ease and then a take sort of action, as I have here.

Here is a screenshot. The Path is nearly 490 cm in z, and the stride length is not quite 18, and she looks like she's doing way more than 26 steps.


S.

<edit> I have slowed her down some and now indeed, I have to fix my stride length, but I'll follow the other post I found as I tweak the walk cycle and redo it. I thought that when I put ease in, that timed things. So for example she holds until 8 seconds in then walks to the first place where she pauses at 14 sec. so in six seconds I was expecting a small but measured stride given the length of that part of the path. I was thinking of it in terms of segments between pauses, as opposed to calculations on the whole path.

Thanks very much for your help. Have a good weekend.