Bob Hughes wrote:

>   Also if I remember the physics of biped walking well enough then the
> guy needs to lean forward some to fall onto each foot put forward.

Actually, the coding for a leaning-forward upper body wasn't that hard.  New
cycle is at:

 http://members.nbci.com/_XMCM/gregjohn/animation.html#POV16

(Note there is no image to click on for this one animation).

Post a reply to this message

| Actually, the coding for a leaning-forward upper body wasn't that hard.
New
| cycle is at:
|
|  http://members.nbci.com/_XMCM/gregjohn/animation.html#POV16
|
| (Note there is no image to click on for this one animation).

That looks better alright.  Has a look of momentum in the right direction
this time.  Still looks well suited to stairs.

Bob

Post a reply to this message

Very robotic! Good work! Or were you trying to go for human...?

Post a reply to this message

I made further improvements to the cycle and posted it at:

 http://members.nbci.com/_XMCM/gregjohn/animation.html#POV16

(new file in that same old link if you had looked before tonite.)
The foot actually bends like that in a real human.

I was trying for something more or less human-looking......

"Greg M. Johnson" wrote:

> All this talk of walk cycles inspired in me a desire to improve my own.
>
> I kept a true FK construction to my character, but I used JvS's
> FindKnee macro to determine the position of the knee, then back
> calculated the FK rotational angles to get the points described. This
> FK/IK setup will also make it easier to make it do things like walk up
> stairs.
>
> Thanks for the advice when I posted actually back in April this same
> deal.  I think it's a lot smoother.  Fixing the rotation or bending of
> the feet are a whole nuther project for another day.
>
> I still have a love/hate relationship with splines.  Yeah, I could
> figure out a way to get it to be very smooth, but then I wouldn't be
> able to tweak, retweak, and microtweak if I have 8 extra points to
> change every time I make a modification. (2 pts before, 2 pts after x 2
> legs= 8 )  >:-P  Note how the "up" ankle travels in a straight triangle.
>
>   ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>                            Name: thebodywalker38c.mpg
>    thebodywalker38c.mpg    Type: MPEG Video (video/mpeg)
>                        Encoding: base64

Post a reply to this message

"Greg M. Johnson" <"gregj;-)56590\""@aol.c;-)om> wrote in message
news:39d69c16@news.povray.org...
> I made further improvements to the cycle and posted it at:
>
>  http://members.nbci.com/_XMCM/gregjohn/animation.html#POV16

I hope next year, I will have time for my old plans
for a big video about a future city with solar energy.

What I have all seen in this newsgroups,
trees, walking humans and all the other things,
it was far to complicate at my first trial 1994,
I think this will be a great project.


--

http://www.pege.org clear targets for a confused civilization
http://www.BeingFound.com web design starts at the search engine

Post a reply to this message

Hi Greg!

The cycle is better now, but still could be improved a lot.

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 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?

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.

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

Greetings,

Rune
--
\ Include files, tutorials, 3D images, raytracing jokes,
/ The POV Desktop Theme, and The POV-Ray Logo Contest can
\ all be found at http://rsj.mobilixnet.dk (updated September 25)
/ Also visit http://www.povrayusers.org

Post a reply to this message

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.

Post a reply to this message

"Greg M. Johnson" wrote:
> 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.

Ah, ok.

Well, pure IK can do anything IK+FK can do, but if a character is originally
designed for FK it's sometimes easier to use IK+FK. Pure IK can easily
handle any object, not just cylinders, as you can see in the file I posted
in povray.binaries.scene-files a few days ago.

> 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?

It depends on what you call IK. There are solutions that doesn't require
calculations of any angles, but use matrixes to move the different parts.
It's all about how you want to control your character. How are the feet of
your character currently controlled? Do you specify points? Vectors? Angles?

Greetings,

Rune
--
\ Include files, tutorials, 3D images, raytracing jokes,
/ The POV Desktop Theme, and The POV-Ray Logo Contest can
\ all be found at http://rsj.mobilixnet.dk (updated September 25)
/ Also visit http://www.povrayusers.org

Post a reply to this message

Rune wrote:

> Well, pure IK can do anything IK+FK can do, but if a character is originally
> designed for FK it's sometimes easier to use IK+FK. Pure IK can easily
> handle any object, not just cylinders, as you can see in the file I posted
> in povray.binaries.scene-files a few days ago.

Can it do a rotating heel + knee system?

> It's all about how you want to control your character. How are the feet of
> your character currently controlled? Do you specify points? Vectors? Angles?

If you look at my 04.08.00 posting here, that was pure FK with specified angles.

This version is complicated.
The point of the "toe ball" of the foot (what do you call it?) is specified in
an include file as a clock spline.
The point of the ankle is calculated from a rotation by an angle specified in a
clock spline.
The knee point is then found using JvS' macro.
Then I used math to recalculate the angles for my FK construction for the hip
and knee angles.

Post a reply to this message

"Greg M. Johnson" wrote:
> Can it do a rotating heel + knee system?

How do you define a rotating heel + knee system? I don't find the meaning of
it obvious.

> If you look at my 04.08.00 posting here, that was pure FK with
> specified angles.
>
> This version is complicated.

Wait a minute - I don't quite get this...

Do you work like this:

A) You manually use JvS's macro to find the knee point
   and manually calculate the required angles?
   So you have to do some math calculations every time
   you want it to move in a different way?

Or is it like this:

B) Your POV script uses JvS's macro to find the knee point
   and then automatically do all necessary math calculations.

Please clarify! :-)

Rune
--
\ Include files, tutorials, 3D images, raytracing jokes,
/ The POV Desktop Theme, and The POV-Ray Logo Contest can
\ all be found at http://rsj.mobilixnet.dk (updated September 25)
/ Also visit http://www.povrayusers.org

Post a reply to this message