BLENDER

steps to
success
Turn a simple walk cycle into a stroll with style! Improve your character animation in our Blender masterclass,
which makes use of genuine rigs from the movie Elephants Dream, provided on the CD

alk cycles are one of the staples

BY BASSAM KURDALI

layer animations on top of his walk. Finally, we’ll look at some

W of 3D character animation. Yet it’s

all too easy to end up with bland,
robotic movements. In this tutorial,
you will learn how to create a walk with personality,
keyframing and refining a basic movement cycle, then
of the extra cloth animation controls the character rig contains.
Don’t worry too much about Proog’s coat until the very last step
of the tutorial – to look good, it needs some hand tweaking.
The walkthrough is intended for readers who already have
some familiarity with both Blender and the basic concepts
FACTFILE layering secondary animations over the top. of animating a walk cycle. If you get stuck, refer to the
For this, we will use Blender’s NLA Editor (Nonlinear annotated screenshots on the CD. The disc also contains a set
FOR Animation Editor). It works just like a video editor, but using of numbered scene files that will enable you to pick up the
Blender
animation ‘strips’ instead of video clips. Each strip represents tutorial again at the corresponding steps, and more are available
DIFFICULTY instances of an action that can be moved, scaled in time or for download from www.3dworldmag.com/stoppress.
Intermediate / Advanced
layered on top of other strips. This allows you to create an The Proog model itself is the genuine rigged character
TIME TAKEN
action that contains one walking cycle, while the strip itself from the movie, and is available under a Creative Commons
One day
contains as many cycles as are required for your character to attribution licence, so it can be used for any project you like.
ON THE CD
walk along the path you have assigned to it. The repetitive Most of the tutorial can be completed in Blender 2.41,
• Full-size screenshots
• Blend file for Proog nature of the cycling can be offset by using additive action which is included on the disc. However, some of the advanced
• Textures strips to alter the motion, or by adding other strips to layer steps require Blender 2.42, which should be a free public
• Blend files for stages
different actions on top of the walk. download from www.blender.org by the time you read this.
2,15, 21 and 26
In the tutorial, we’ll be using Proog, the lead character in
ALSO REQUIRED
the world’s first open source animated film, Elephants Dream. Bassam Kurdali is a freelance animator. He recently finished
More supporting files can
be found on our website First, we’ll keyframe a basic walk cycle and make the action work as Director/Animation Director on Elephants Dream
loop properly, then put him on a path and add some actions and www.freefactory.org

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 Animating better walk cycles | TUTORIALS

ON THE WEB ON THE CD

● Bonus scene files and ● Blender 2.41 (see
finished walk animation note in introduction
www.3dworldmag.com about version 2.42)
SEE PAGE 82
▲

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 TUTORIALS | Animating better walk cycles
STAGE ONE | Creating a sneaky-looking walk cycle
Launch Blender and adjust the panels until you have
01 Action, NLA and IPO Curve Editors, a 3D Viewport,
buttons and timeline windows onscreen. Split and
join panels by hovering the mouse over their edges and
right-clicking. Move the edges by clicking and dragging. Drag
down the top menu bar, select Edit Methods and, under ‘Auto
keyframe’, select Available, drag the bar up and hit [Ctrl]+[U].
For the first contact position, drag the Frame Marker
03 to frame one, then go to the Side View in the 3D
Viewport. Select and move Proog’s left foot half a
step forward and a touch inwards. Don’t lift it on the Z-Axis!
Rotate it so his toes are pointing up and turned out. (Pronate
by rotating on the Y-Axis.) Press the [I] key and select ‘LocRot’
to set a keyframe.
EXPERT TIP i EXPERT TIP
Using manipulators
Use manipulators for positioning,
rotating and scaling. These can be
turned on and off with the hand icon
in the 3D Viewport, and the buttons
to choose translate, scale or rotate
can be [Shift]-clicked to select more
than one at a time. The drop-down
menu with the options Global,
Local, Normal and View selects the
alignment of the manipulator axis.
Generally, Normal is the most useful
for posing bones, since it aligns with
the axis of each bone. You can also
use hotkeys to constrain motion in
the 3D Viewport by pressing the axis
letter after initiating a transform.
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Load Proog: choose File > Open or [F1] and browse
02 to where you extracted the files from the CD. Select
‘stage_2.blend’ and hit [Enter]. If you want to keep
you current layout, deselect ‘Load UI’ at the bottom of the file
selection window, otherwise you will get the same UI layout
saved with the file. Note: the full-size screenshots are on the
CD, so don’t worry about reading the tiny annotations above!
Here’s a little trick: select the left foot, press the
04 down arrow on the 3D Viewport header (Copy Pose),
then the small upwards icon with the pink arrow
(Paste Mirrored Pose). The right foot is now in the mirrored
position of the left foot, so move the right foot backwards,
zero its X and Y rotation, then key it with the [I] key.
Pose the arms and shoulders by rotating and keying
06 rotations so that the right arm is forward and the
left is backward. Rotate the palm, thumb and finger
bones. The fingers and thumbs are each controlled by one
bone: rotating it rotates the finger, scaling causes the finger
to curl. Key each digit’s rotation and scale. ([Shift]-select
multiple bones and key them together to save time).
EXPERT TIP i
Setting up contact points
We’ll create the walk cycle in one
place using pose-to-pose techniques.
Imagine that you’re animating a
character walking on a treadmill,
with each planted foot rolling back,
when planning the poses. You can
plan the cycle between any of the
key poses, but the simplest way is to
start from the contact positions
where the front foot just begins to
touch the ground, then do the
passing position (where the back
foot passes the front). Finally, do the
down position and the up position.
These last two give a sense of
gravity and force to the walk cycle.
Pose the torso in the same way as you posed the foot
05 in Step 3: select control bones, rotate and/or move
them until you like the contact pose. The cage-like
‘bodybase’ control can be used to move and rotate the entire
torso; the rest of the spine (body, back, neck and head) can
be rotated independently (‘body’ can also be translated, but
we’ll just rotate it). If you rotate, key ‘Rot’; if you move, key ‘Loc’.
i
The layers provided
Proog’s armature has 16 visibility
layers that help minimise the clutter
in the 3D Viewport, Action Editor and
NLA Editor. The first layer contains
his body and leg bones; the second
has his left arm FK controls; the
third, his left arm IK controls; and the
the fourth, his left palm and finger
controls. The fifth, sixth and seventh
layers control his right arm and hand
in the same way. The stride bone is
on layer eight, and the facial controls
are on layer nine. Layer 11 has cloth
fix-up controls. Other layers contain
bones that you shouldn’t animate
and are supposed to be hidden.
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 Animating better walk cycles | TUTORIALS

STAGE ONE (Continued) | Creating a sneaky-looking walk cycle

That’s the first pose done! Save time by pressing the
07 VCR-style record button in the timeline; this turns
on Auto-Keying. Select all the bones posed so far
and select the Copy Pose arrow in the header. Then move the
frame counter 24 frames forward, and hit the Paste Mirrored
Pose arrow; another 24, and hit the Paste Pose arrow. You
now have the character skating between contact positions.
Select the left foot and go into the IPO Curve Editor
08 window (make sure it’s set to show Pose IPOs), then
click on the label ‘LocY’. Select the Y location curve
and hit [Tab] in the IPO Curve Editor, then select the Bezier
handles between frames 1 and 24 and press [V] to make
that section straight. Do the same for the right foot between
frames 24 and 48.
Now the passing position (frame 16). This is where
09 the back foot passes the front foot in the middle
of the cycle. Lift the right foot up and make sure to
remove the X and Y rotation on the left foot, but don’t move
its location. Pose the hips and other body parts as shown
above, and then select all the bones that are keyed here.
Copy the pose, go to frame 40 and Paste Mirrored Pose.

The first down position is frame 5. Clear X and Y
10 rotation of the left foot and rotation of the ankle
and toe, select them and press [I] > Available. Get
Proog’s weight over his front foot and swing the arms further
than in the contact pose. Paste Mirrored Pose on frame 29.
Straighten the foot curves between down and contact poses.
Next, create the up position of the foot: the highest
11 one after the passing position. Try to create a sense
of Proog pushing his weight up and forward while
on his resting leg. Again, Copy Pose and Paste Mirrored Pose
to get the mirror of the pose done. Now delete all the extra
location keys within straight segments of the feet IPO curves.
We can continue to break down the walk into poses,
12 or do straight ahead runs on the feet, head, arms, and
neglected body parts such as fingers. Break apart
the motions of joints (try to get the hands and fingers to trail
the arms, and so on) to limber the motion up. Tinker with the
Action Editor and 3D Viewport until the movement looks good.

STAGE TWO | Making Proog walk along a path

EXPERT TIP i
How this method works
While posing Proog to create the
walk cycle, think of the ‘stride’ bone
(see Step 13) as a conveyor belt
moving backwards that the character
walks on. When applying the ‘stride’
to a path, Blender cycles the action
and uses the ‘stride’ bone to control
the speed of the cycles.
The ‘stride’ bone itself remains
stationary on the path for every
cycle of the action. This makes the
Go to frame 5 (or the first ‘down’ position in the Go to the last frame in which the left foot is in
character move steadily forwards
along the path. You need to key the 13 action). In the 3D Viewport, select the ‘stride’ bone 14 contact with the ground (in my case, frame 34 –
and press the [I] key and select ‘Loc’ to key its this may differ depending on the tweaks you
first and last frame of the action on
location. Click on Stride Root in the Armature Bones panel. applied in Step 12). Move the ‘stride’ bone in the Y-Axis until
the ‘stride’ bone itself for this to
Move the bone ‘L_stride’ until it lines up with the back of the ‘L_stride’ triangle is aligned with the back of the left heel.
work correctly.
the left heel in the side view. ‘L_stride’ is just a marker, so Don’t move or key ‘L_stride’ itself; just the ‘stride’ bone.
▲

it doesn’t matter if it’s keyed.

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 TUTORIALS | Animating better walk cycles
STAGE TWO (Continued) | Making Proog walk along a path
Select the ‘stride’ bone and, in the IPO Curve Editor,
15 select its Y Location curve. In the header menu,
select Curve > Extend Mode > Extrapolation. The
curve becomes a straight line. Go to frame one, put the mouse
in the IPO Curve Editor window and press [I] to insert a key.
Do the same at frame 49 (the last frame of the action). In the
Action Editor, delete the original ‘stride’ bone keys at 5 and 34.
To create the path on which Proog will walk, hit
17 [Spacebar] while in the 3D Viewport. Select Add >
Curve > Path. Press [Tab] once to go to Object Mode,
then press [Alt]+[G] followed by [Alt]+[R] to clear its location
and rotation. Press [Tab] again to go into Edit Mode and edit
the path until you achieve something you like the look of.
Don’t make it too extreme or the walk cycle will break.
In the 3D Viewport, press [Ctrl]+[Tab] to take the
20 armature out of Pose Mode, select the path, then
[Shift]-select the armature and hit [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[C]
and add a Follow Path constraint to the armature. In the Panels
window, select the Object buttons, go to the Constraints
panel, and make sure the CurveFollow button is pressed – the
follow (Fw) direction is in -Y, and Z is the Up vector.
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Check that the right foot matches up with the stride:
16 simply use the ‘R_stride’ marker and line it up with
the back of the right heel in any frame in which
the right foot is in contact with the ground. The ‘R_stride’
should remain aligned in all other ground-contacting frames,
otherwise the right foot needs to be adjusted.
Select ‘proogskel’. If you haven’t named the
18 action, do so now. Delete the link to the action by
clicking the ‘x’ next to its name in the Action Editor.
Mouseover the NLA Editor and add ([Shift]+[A]) the action as
a strip (or mouseover the NLA window and press [Alt]+[C] to
convert the action to an action strip). Make sure that you’re in
NLA Mode (see the Expert Tips box after Step 21).
Tweak the speed of the movement by clicking on
21 the path and going to an IPO Curve Editor, then
editing the speed curve as shown above. Change
the Strip End time to the end of the animation, and adjust the
end frame of the animation. And that’s it! You’ve got Proog
walking!
EXPERT TIP i
Switching between modes
When adding new objects, Blender
automatically enters Edit Mode on
that object. This allows you to edit
vertices/bones in sub-object level.
Blender’s working modes are
accessible via the pop-up menu in the
3D Viewport header, or via hotkeys.
They consist of, in order: Object
Mode, Pose Mode (armatures must
be in Pose Mode before they can be
animated), Edit Mode, and modes for
weight and face painting on meshes.
To toggle Edit Mode on and off, use
[Tab], and to toggle Pose Mode
(this is only available for armatures),
use [Ctrl]+[Tab].
In the NLA Editor, hit [N] to get the strip’s Transform
19 Properties window, if it isn’t already visible. Check
the Stride Path option, and make sure the Stride
Bone option has the ‘stride’ bone name, and that the axis
for the striding is the Y-Axis.
EXPERT TIP i
Single actions vs strips
To display a single action rather than
a strip, click on the button in the
NLA Editor next to the name of the
armature. When the button shows
the Action Editor icon, the armature
displays only the results of that
action’s keys. When it shows the NLA
Editor icon, the armature displays the
results of NLA strip animations. For
path-based animation to take place,
you must be in NLA Mode or the
armature will only display the result
of one motion cycle. If you’re editing a
single action, you can use the toggle
to ‘capture’ the NLA-based state at any
frame and key it in your action.
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 Animating better walk cycles | TUTORIALS

STAGE THREE | Layering more actions on top of the walk

Now let’s refine the animation. To add another
22 action on top of the path animation, [Shift]+[A] in
the NLA view (with Proog’s armature selected) and
add an action by name. Select the ‘crouch’ action and click the
Add button, then make the Blendin and Blendout 15 frames
or so. Proog will now crouch a bit as he walks.
You can also add an entirely new action and edit it
23 on top of the NLA animation. Let’s make Proog peer
around. Go to the Action Editor, which currently
shows whatever action is active, click on the ‘x’ to the right
of the name, then on the arrows for selecting an action,
and choose ADD NEW from the menu. Call the new action
something descriptive: we simply called it ‘peer’.
Before starting to create the action, select and key
24 the bones you intend to animate (the head, neck,
back, shoulders and arm bones, including the hands)
at the last and first frame of the action. This allows you to
blend the action from the current animation without having
to use the Blendin/Blendout feature.

EXPERT TIP i
Animating the face
You can also add facial animation!
In the ‘proogskel’ armature on layer
nine are Proog’s facial controls.
The controls (nicknamed ‘bots’) are
mostly location controls, and are
locked, allowing them to move only
in useful ways. Move around the blue
shapes and you’ll see their effect on
the face. You can scale ‘botbrowmid’
and ‘botnarrow’ to wrinkle the brow
and purse the lips. The green eyelid
controls can only be rotated about
their X-Axis to raise and lower each
eyelid. The ‘eyetracker’ (shaped like
a pair of sunglasses) controls the
direction in which Proog’s eyes point.

In the left column of the NLA window, hit [Alt]+[C]
25 to convert the action to a strip. You can continue
to edit from here while viewing the results in the
3D Viewport. Over the range of the action, the new keys
replace the underlying walk, which is usually what you want.
Experiment with what you’ve learned so far to keyframe a
suspicious ‘peering’ action for Proog for yourself.
To finish off, refine the cloth animation. Select all
26 the strips in the NLA Editor by pressing the [A]
key once or twice. Move them roughly 30 frames
in and don’t forget to edit the speed curve of the path as
before. Now, bake the cloth simulation by clicking on the
ProogSoftProx object on layer 15, and in the Physics buttons,
bake the simulation over the range of the animation. The
cloth can be tweaked further by moving (and keying) the
cloud of empties on scene layer nine. Proog’s armature
(‘proogskel’) and jacket armature (‘proogjakskel’) have
controls on armature layer 11 to animate the collar and
sleeve manually. And that’s it: you’ve learned to keyframe
a walk cycle, refine it, and added secondary motions. Now
experiment for yourself to develop the animation further. ●

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