Walking the Dog: Relaxed walk cycle

Reference Images:

The relaxed walk was a mixture of a 'floppy walk' and a walk where my father was interacting with the dog. The weight of the walk will be low in the torso and the walk is mainly lead by the knees. The legs are never fully extended but there are very defined ups and downs. 

 This walk was a little too stiff for the walk I had in mind. However I liked the posture of the torso and the position of the left arm provided useful reference as to the posture of someone when walk a dog.

Take 1: 37 frames

This is my first take for my first walk cycle. The walk is meant to reflect a relaxed, leisurely walk and was to feel weighted. The feedback received form Dan was to have more hip sway, lifting the leg more, exaggerate the ups and down and decrease to side to side sway. Also the part of the body leading the walk is the knees so exaggerating this was also needed.

Take 2: 40 frames

In this walk cycle I took on Dan's suggestions and increased the walk cycle to 40 frames matching my reference video's. The feed back received for this walk was that there needed to be more shoulder rotation as the upper torso doesn't move making it walk look stiff. Also the hand movement was far to exaggerated. I had tried to create a feeling of overlap but the rise of the hand was too exaggerated and needs to be lessened. Alterations have to be made to the legs as well. The right rotates when it moves back, thus giving the illusion of the foot sliding.

Final Relaxed Walk Cycle:

This is the final walk cycle with amendments addressing the criticism above. I've added shoulder rotation which is subtly but is no movement made the walk look very ridged. The hand movement and overlap is not as exaggerated as it was before and subsequently looks far more effective. I also exaggerated the ups and downs but made the body overall sit much lower. This made the knees stick out more, leading the walk.

Animating the Ground Plane:

In the digital tutors vides to make the rig walk the ground plane was keyed at the beginning and at the end of a cycle and had no keys in between. This produced as straight line on the graph editor and although the feet didn't slide I felt that the walk was to smooth and that the feet needed to be more planted.

To achieve that I keyed the ground plane to make sure the feet didn't move while on the ground. this resulted in many more keys but the walk looked heavier and weighted.

Animating the ground plane: