How to Easily Translate a Walk Cycle Forward | Maya Animation Tip

Learn how to take an in-place or treadmill walk and get it properly translating forward in space. This is a question I get pretty often, "How do you move a walk cycle forward if it's animated in place?" This is the workflow I use to ensure there is zero foot sliding.
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Chapters 📘
0:00 Intro
0:20 Eyeballing the Main Control Translation
2:04 Proper Method for Translating a Walk Cycle
6:45 Outro

[@Boba3d]

Hi Mark and thank you for inspirations considering workflows. I have little shortcut considering scaling keys. You could simply select keys in graph editor and in the value field on the status line type *=-1. So timing values with -1 is inversing values. In that way you could also offset keys in the time field such as +=10, -=10 etc.

[@LFA_GM]

Straight to the point. Worked for me. I added the root motion to a new anim layer, so I can toggle on/off. Keep up the good work!

[@Malakaiser]

Thanks for this! I was wondering if the same tactic would work in blender, so I tried it, and it does! I'm no tutorial maker mind you, but here is how I made mine work. In blender's case, instead of Z being forward and backwards, its Y, so that's the keyframe range you would select on the graph editor for the foot control. Also, in order to copy it to the root bone, the root bone seems to need at least 1 keyframe active before you can paste the Y graph from the foot control. And in order to have the root bone keep moving forward into infinity, instead of using "Make Cyclic" on the root bone, you have to use "Linear Extrapolation" instead!

[@otodaxter]

your method is so insane, you save me a lot of time thank you, i hope watch another video like that :D

[@lewisnorden3744]

Needed help with this and this wonderfully and super easy to follow and understand. Thankyou!

[@indecentparodies]

Please keep bringing these tutorials ❤

[@gercektaskala2275]

Thank you very much for this very helpful video.

[@JoshPurple]

Excellent, Thank You 🏆👍!

[@atthariqinsanulhaq]

This is helpful 💯💯

[@danpym3D]

life time saver!! 👏

[@Axiassart]

Thanks for the video 🙏

[@vikaskunwar]

this same thing i am doing nowadays the walkcycle looks ok but as soon as i converted it into prograceive walk its start looking bit off. Thanks for this knowledge, really going to helps me alot.

[@kittyface27]

thank you so much this is a game changer for me

[@moharramzarenosale]

Hi.thank you mark for your attempting💖

[@TopsonNoble]

This is very neat

[@Machi_ADL]

nice！thanks bro！

[@Aditya90sKZ]

This works as it said in the title for walk cycle. But what to do when the character is somewhere else and he has to move from pos x to pos y?

[@hotsauce7124]

Very cool

[@javohirparpiyev]

Thanks a lot

[@michipeka9973]

I do the same thing to check if my walk cycle is not weird when developed in world space, as a matter of fact I even wrote a script which does the whole operation - back and forth - for me.

[@mehulsoni8220]

Hey Mark can you do a video on world space locators. Like with a quadruped anim where the creature is running/walking and doing some behaviour stuff. Thanks.

[@forzamaya4087]

Thanks

[@mdoumdou4085]

Hello Mark, you did very well! I want to ask how to make a character walking follow a curve. I saw others can easily do it, but I need to learn how to put an animated character on the turn. Should I export an animated character go first?

[@mikemcgill5324]

Constrain>Motion Path is the answer. Draw the curve with the CV Curve tool first, of course. Bonus Tip: Create a Motion clip with the Time Editor for a looping cycle and then you can use Scale Mode and Loop Mode to speed up or slow down the clip.

[@DragonNuts]

How did you get your viewport background?

[@fxdloquendo]

is it exactly the same for a run cycle?

[@adamwaters9833]

Do you have a tutorial of a treadmill walk cycle translating forward without having to use the all curve?

[@ramoshka667]

hi Mark, i'm using blender and can you show how to do it in blender with basic walk cycle

[@Lucky-lo2wc]

can we apply this method to run cycle ???

[@animationtool1115]

Cool

[@bacleedon5670]

Cooool

[@frinziT6864]

Hi Mark, I'm trying to use your second method, but my foot is still sliding. I made sure the foot control for translate z is linear from frame 1 to frame 16. I copied the translate z and pasted it on the main controller of the whole body. I then scale it exactly like yours but it's still sliding.

[@midniteyt7005]

yes this is what happening to me too

[@Sampadagurung]

same here

[@user-cv8uv1ns6u]

Hi, can you tell us how to stop it at a specific time, please?

[@awat32]

Does the master control translation need to be zero at the start? Because I move my character around my environment and the translation is not zero.

[@sureshvallinayagam1491]

can you please make the treadmill walk cycle tutorial for beginners.

[@MrMars53]

Does this method some how also work if I wanted the rig to follow a path curve

[@MarkMastersAnim]

Yeah in theory this would work having it follow along a path as well.

[@user-xv5qn9ue2m]

is anyone can tell me how to do this with 4 leg animal?

[@Cadence24]

If you work on a game, and the game designer or someone else doesn't matter, tells you that the speed of the walk cycle should be 200cm per second, how do you plan it before going into a lot of details in the walk cycle?

[@MarkMastersAnim]

Great question! That might be a good tutorial topic. But, that is a scenario that happens quite often, even sometimes late in the process. Once we start playing it, and seeing it in-game, adjustments usually need to be made. The designers will usually speed up the walk in game, which means lot's of feet sliding. I use a free script to figure out speed inside of Maya, so I usually use that to setup the new speed design has given, then try to adjust my walk cycle to fit. Speeding up/slowing down the animation overall, adjusting the gate, etc. It's great if that happens very early on when the walk is like first pass, but having to adjust the speed of a polished walk happens a lot too.

[@Cadence24]

I tested some fake scenarios on some locomotions that I did, and its really tough to adjust locomotions to a specific speed, I really think it could be an amazing idea for an in-depth tutorial because I have never seen a tutorial or something close to it anywhere and Im pretty sure its something that you do a lot as a game animator. Adjusting a walking speed is especially tough, because your feet are always on the ground, so from what I tested you can only adjust the speed of a walk cycle by shrinking or expanding how many frames your walk is. Jogging and running are a bit easier because you have in-air poses, so if you increase your in-air poses and decrease the time the feet are on the ground the cycles are faster, and the opposite is slower. but maybe there is an easier method to do those stuff that I don't know about. @MarkMastersAnim

[@_KiMoN_]

it will be great if you do full body walk cycle tutorial

[@ImHendro]

He did

[@_KiMoN_]

@@ImHendro not step by step like run tutorial one

[@ioandragulescu6063]

there's also using animbot to flip the curve :)

[@amvkai6563]

i need this character . where i can download this character

[@ExtileFuze]

Just curious does this apply to a run cycle cause damm I tried with a run and it still slides 💀

[@shadaviongrant7605]

Yes same principles apply to the run cycle. But I’m trying to figure out how to get the translation to end at a certain frame. You know how to do that?

[@luten4824]

it is also the method i use in blender with mine 😅

[@straycatsanimations]

Where is the walk cycle tutorial

[@MarkMastersAnim]

On my channel. Was uploaded a few weeks ago.

[@piyushsoni3797]

Hi everyone! I really need some help translating a creature run cycle forward and couldnt find any video for the same. Can Anyone help. Quadruped. cat.