Running in Place

When the animation for Kila is played in-game, it's the game code that will actually cause her to move. So we now need to alter our animation, removing her forward movement. (If you animated the character without this forward movement, you can skip this section.)

Normally, removing the forward movement would involve editing the Root_Control and both foot controls' Translate Z attributes, working out where they should be at specific timesas you can imagine, this can be a very difficult and time-consuming task. To make this much easier, I have supplied a script on the GCDM shelf called Spot. As long as you have followed the same naming conventions I have used during the creation of the rig, this script will pull the animation back for you.

NOTE

If you are using a different rig or if your names are different, you can simply rename the main controls to Root_Control, LeftFoot, and RightFoot, and the script will work. When you're done with this task, you can change the names back to the ones you prefer.

All the Spot script does is work out the distance of each foot from the hips on each keyframe. The keys are then pulled back while maintaining this offset. You can do this just as easily using the Graph Editor, but it will take a while longer to complete.

Once you've run the script, all you need to do is make sure the first and last keys (0 and 32) are exactly the same, to ensure that the loop is seamless.

You can see both Kila and Grae's walk cycles by loading the files Kila_Walk.mb and Grae_Walk.mb from the CD. You will also find a selection of QuickTime movies in this chapter's Movies directory, showing both characters walking from different views.