You raise so many good points I hope I can do justice in replying before the
"slow connection" made worse by using internet radio cuts me off!  At this hour,
my algorithm for walking up stairs has the foot tearing itself from the body and
flinging itself up the stairs! Oh my.

Rune wrote:

> I think the triangle patch of the feet are not so good. Try something
> smoother. Same goes for the up-and-down movement of the body. And in reality
> I think you don't lift up the feet so much.

I need a new technology for smooth motion.  Splines don't cut it. They are fine
for camera paths and lathes.  Yes, once I come up with a perfect, perfect, 97th
revision of exactly what my keyframe positions are to be, I can spend a few
extra hours guessing what points 2 points before and after my active keyframe
positions would work and give a smooth motion: the legacy of cubic splines, and
do this for each of the 5-6 data points for the 10-15 variables getting altered
during the walk.  In a word: bleh.

> I also think it would be a good idea to make the man walk in real-time
> instead of slow-motion. That way it is easier to see if the movements look
> real.
>
> I don't quite get what the advantage of using the IK/FK technique is. How is
> it better than regular IK?

You might be right in that it's not better for everyone starting from scratch,
but at least out of laziness with my current creation, it takes a lot less work,
in that I set up my system as fk.  It is a blob. Everything is based on rotate
translate rotate translate, etc.  I have hundreds of little spheres and
cylinders all over the place, and the construction makes sense to me as FK. The
bicep muscle, for example, is an elongated sphere that sits just a bit forward
in z from the cylinder of the arm bone.  I think you posted a really cool anim
of an alien-like character where the arm & forearm where but a cylinder. I also
think that in a blob, you cannot declare a sub-object and transform and still
have it behave as a blob as everything fits together.

On the other hand,  note the bend in my foot.  The IK is based on the ankle.  Is
there an easy IK-pure solution based on such a complicated foot?

> And a suggestion for your animation web page: Having a slow connection I
> would prefer that you rearranged the animations so the newest are at the
> top. That way I can see the new thumbnails quicker.

Alright will try in the future. Just so you'll know,  XOOM/ nbci's  policy
forbade a direct link, say to members.xoom.com/dude/dudeanim.mpg.

> I look forward to seeing the further development of your walking technique!

Thanks mon.

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