How can I time animations realistically?

Development Character & Animation
1

I’m only on day 2 of learning animations, so I hope this isn’t a dumb question…

If I have a running animation, how can I time the key frames in a way that will give a realistic look?

I made a crouching walk animation, and the a crouch speed of 300 doesn’t match up. So, would I tweak the speed until it matches the animation? Or would I increase the animation speed if I want to crouch walk faster?

Isn’t there some fancy math I could do? For example, if it takes 10 frames to take a step forward, then it will compliment a walk speed of 400.

Hope that made sense

2

Hey there,

what I do is the following steps:

  1. Determinate the target movement speed. e.g. 300.
  2. Animate the character that he actually walked 3m in 1 second (30 fps) in your programm. You can variable this so that the animation doesn’t look too slow/fast e.g. 1.5m in 0.5seconds etc.
  3. Delete the root bone keyframes so that your character walks in place again.

The downside with this approuch is, that is quite cumbersome to retweak the animation.

Else you could use root motion.

Hope it helps.

3

When i make e.g. walk/run cycle and after importing into game it doesn’t fit its movement speed, i just watch feet of my character - if they’re sliding on the ground, i change animation scale (speed) in UE, until it behaves realistically. Maybe it’s not a perfect solution if you have very “mismatched” animation speed, but works for me.

4

import reference videos/images direct to your to maya/3ds max

also look for blocking animation

5

Instead of deleting root bone animations, create an animation layer on top of your current animation and adjust it to stick in place… that way you get to keep your hip movements if your hips are part of your root

6

Alright I took your guys’ tips and made a run animation.

This is my first attempt, so I know there’s lots to be improved. It looks a bit stiff, choppy. Any critique & tips? Some reading material?

Also, this was made in blender. I keep seeing motion builder mentioned, should I use that?

Warning, there is a butt (thank you MakeHuman):

7

Not bad. Looking a bit stiff… but good all round. Maybe add some shoulder and hip n spine movements.
Motion builder costs money…

Rather buy a good book and see if you can get your hands on the 12 principles of animation