Flash Animation - Robot Walk

[Drewbacca]

http://dca.durhamc.on.ca/~lewandowski/dude.html

I'm just testing how to make a proper walk animation in flash. It's not mechanical because the robot is going to be very emotional in the end. It's for a flash intro to a site so he'll also be slower.

Give some feedback. The one thing I notice is the lack of mechanicalness it should have. But like I said, I did that on purpose. (simple addition of frames at the top and bottom of each leg and arm stride would make it more mechanical)

[dave is ok]

Looks good. Do you know of any good programs to make animated gifs?

[cigsthecat]

He's sliding. You need to get some up and down motion in the body, and really bend the knees for starters.

[Drewbacca]

Looks good. Do you know of any good programs to make animated gifs?

Flash can export to animated gifs. And Adobe Imageready can also do it.

He's sliding. You need to get some up and down motion in the body, and really bend the knees for starters.

Sliding like ice?

For up and down animation do you mean like natural body mechanics in how our spine naturally bends to balance out our body as we sway out arms?

[Mman]

Yeah, he is sliding. He is moving his feet back and forth and moving forward, but not because of the movement. You do not walk like that.

[Drewbacca]

I don't understand what you mean. In a stride you don't notice someones foot going pressing off the ground. You notice the stride in general. I'm going to try and fiddle with it but I think twinking with the legs and putting up and down motion like cigs said will correct the problem.

I'm not being critical of your advice I'd just like some ways to solve the problem with the criticism too.

[cigsthecat]

This is from "Cartoon Animation" by Preston Blair. Every animator should have it. It's cheap.



Notice how the head and body are down on the step, and up when lifting the foot mid stride. For a robot walk I'd consider hitting the 'steps' harder- less hangtime before clanking down. Imagine the feet as heavier than a normal human.

[Drewbacca]

wow cool that's awesome. What's his book? Can I buy it on eBay? I'm interested in animation. Other than a cartoon I drew entirely by hand for Joystick Adventures. it was pretty good for what I had.

That is the first walk animation I had. Also, I don't want to make the person bend forward so the animation would differ a bit. I'm going to search for this on eBay.

edit: Amazon not eBay

EDIT again: is this the right one man? http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...books&n=507846 ?

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/item.a...43294768411808

This is another one but it's like 50 dollars Canadian. What the hell kind of translation rate is that?

[cigsthecat]

That's the one.

[Drewbacca]

It's cool. People think that because it's old school style squish and squash animation that it's useless. They're dumb. You can still apply it to the high-techy animation of today. The process is the same.

I like the swagger of that guy though. I'm going to apply it to my animation tomorrow so I'll show you the progress in tomorrow night i guess.

Thanks for your help.

I may change the logo too. My design intructor said it was nice, but maybe too stern for the lighter theme. But at the same time the logo would be used on letterhead and corporate branding items, so something lighter may not be a good way to go.