Finishing the walk cycle

We’re done with the hardest part of the walk cycle. Now we can relax and animate those less-than-essential limbs so that Rain’s walk cycle looks natural and complete. This stage mostly involves animating FK bones that are governed by simpler relationships, such as the FK bones for Rain’s toes and arms.

FK toes

Before we can say Rain’s feet are completely animated, we ought to finish by animating the toes. We’ll have them extend back as the heel strikes the ground:

Figure 8.41: Toe of front foot extending and flattening

On some later frames, you’ll have noticed that Rain’s toes automatically bend due to the effects of ball roll. This is nice to have right up until the foot is picked up, after which it looks a bit odd. We can curl the toe bone in the other direction to cancel out this effect after the foot has left the ground:

Figure 8.42: Toes of the...