Animating for Games - Game Character Development with Maya - page 962

floor, and move the hips forward, keeping them in between both feet at all times
( Figure 16.12c ) .
Set a key to store this pose.
3. Now we come to what would be the breakdown and the next crossover. Move
along to frame 16 and try your best to replicate the pose on frame 0 ( Figure
16.12d ) , but on the opposite feet. Set a key to store it.
4. Now add the second in-between. The left foot needs to plant, so move to frame 24
and do your best to replicate the pose on frame 8, again on the opposite feet ( Fig-
ure 16.12e ).
Tip
An easy way to do this is to use the middle mouse button to go to frame
24. Line up one of the feet on top of the opposite one in the view, and set a
key just on the one you moved. Left-click to move back to the reference
frame, then repeat on the other foot and the root. The poses will be nearly
identically mirrored in just a few seconds, with no guesswork.
5. The pose in frame 32 (our second extreme) needs to be the same as frame 0 so that
it can successfully cycle ( Figure 16.12f ) . To quickly accomplish this, simply copy
the keys from frame 0 to frame 32 and then adjust the Z translation.
Now we will clean up the Root_Controls keys a little—it's important to keep your anima-
tion clean, removing any unused keyframes.
1. Select the Root_Control and open the Graph Editor.
2. Delete all the keys, except the first and last ones on the Translate Z curve. You
want its Z translation to be a continuous straight line, as it is in Figure 16.13 . This
will allow the character to move forward smoothly; any extra keys might cause her
to pause as she steps.