Animating for Games - Game Character Development with Maya - page 978

So select the middle two keys and make their tangents Flat, producing a smoother
curve like that in Figure 16.26 , middle.
Finally, you need to make sure this curve loops correctly. Looking at its current
path, the tangents are shallower at the beginning than they are at the end—the start
and end keys need to be updated so the animation will run smoothly. Our anima-
tion's midpoint is at frame 16, but we offset the animation by two frames; so the
new midpoint is 18.
5. Move along to frame 18. With your middle mouse button, select frames 0 and 32
and set a key on the Rotate Y attribute. The curve is now correctly balanced, mak-
ing for a better loop ( Figure 16.26 , bottom).
Themajorityofthehipworkiscomplete.Sowecannowreturntothefeetandfinishthem.
We'llusetheBall_Rotatecontrolweaddedtotherig,soaseachfootmovesback,Kilawill
eventually end up on just the ball of her foot.
1. Use the gridline as a floor marker, and move along the timeline until the left foot
starts to prematurely leave the floor. This should be around frame 4.
2. This marks where the ball of the foot should start to rotate, so move back to frame
3. Set a key on the Ball_Rotate attribute, storing the value of 0 on this frame.
3. Now move along to where the foot does leave the floor; this should be at frame 10
( Figure 16.27 , left). Set the Ball_Rotate attribute to -45, which will plant the ball
of the foot back on the ground ( Figure 16.27 , right). Set a key.