I want to use root motion with animations, but I’m having an issue creating them.
If we take a walking animation for example, I’m creating the animation in Blender by
moving the root bone, knowing ahead it movement will be “cancelled” from the animation, but will be taken into account as movement.
The problem is at the end. If my walk start at frame 5 and ends at frame 25, in Blender they will be in different positions,
and I can’t just play the animation with looping enabled to see if it looks nice (it will snap back from the forward position back to 0).
How you guys do it then? I tried finding a tutorial or video online, but couldn’t find anything.
p.s.
I’m using Blender, but I think the problem apply to other 3d programs. Correct me if I’m wrong.
If I understand you correctly, you want a way to “Preview” your loop in the 3d app to see if its looping without having the forward movement of the character getting in the way.
There are many ways to accomplish this.
In max for instance if you are using Biped there is an “in place mode” that prevents the skeleton from moving forward and helps you visualise your loop with one click.
In custom rigs the root bones forward animation on one axis can be temporarily disabled to simulate “in place mode” and preview the loop.
Or you can simply temporarily link or wire (depending what it is in Blender) the root’s forward motion only to a secondary helper so you could unlink it when you wish to preview your loops and then enable it back for final export.
Some animators prefer animating without having the character move in space when it comes to nailing their loops and then add forward moving motion when they feel its time to.
The way I used to do it was to parent a camera to the root bone then look through that when I wanted to watch it loop.
However, as outlined, it’s easier to have your root bone parented to another object/control that has your root motion animation, then you can unparent it to see the character moving on the spot.