GDC Presentation Question: Only 2 keyframes for anim?

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kuso77
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Joined: Sun Aug 23, 2015 2:57 am

GDC Presentation Question: Only 2 keyframes for anim?

Post by kuso77 » Sun Aug 23, 2015 3:08 am

tl;dr
I have a question regarding this presentation (http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1020583/An ... e-Approach)

The walk and run animations are said (a few times) to have only used 2 keyframes each.
(kf = keyframe)
However, seeing that there appears to be extreme poses for both left and right legs and arms (i.e. kf 1: right leg planted left leg up, kf2: left leg planted forward, right leg back, kf3: 1 left leg planted right leg up, etc.), it seems to me it would require 4 keyframes.

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Anyone familiar enough with Blender to know how only 2 keyframes are needed to get each of these walk or run anims?

I only use Blender, and furthermore only for a little over 2 years, so it's highly likely there's some button somewhere I don't know about.

Thanks a lot in advance for any info or links.
I tried googling about a bit for an answer but, for me this isn't the easy thing to search for.

Best regards!
Hans W.

post script:
I really dig the philosophy behind the locomotion controls in Overgrowth (as of the date of the presentation), where animations and controls function as a cohesive system.

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Thomason1005
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Re: GDC Presentation Question: Only 2 keyframes for anim?

Post by Thomason1005 » Tue Aug 25, 2015 3:37 am

as far as i understood it he has one keyframe for the extreme position and one for when the legs pass each. this is propably done in blender with both having the same foot forward.
for the other side they are mirrored in davids game engine and then interpolated between. this is where thay also are interpolated with the slow walk animations, the tilt and the free fall between the steps.
i dont know if this is possible in blender, and if so youll have to script it phyton propably as an addon or sth

David
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Re: GDC Presentation Question: Only 2 keyframes for anim?

Post by David » Tue Aug 25, 2015 7:07 pm

In Blender you can copy and paste poses, and you can also paste mirrored -- if you open the rabbit_rig.blend file in Blender 2.55, you can see how most of the animations are set up. There are actually 7 frames in a run, but only two unique ones. The rest are just mirrored or copied so I can see how it looks when it loops.

kuso77
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Joined: Sun Aug 23, 2015 2:57 am

Re: GDC Presentation Question: Only 2 keyframes for anim?

Post by kuso77 » Wed Aug 26, 2015 11:58 pm

Thanks a lot for the replies Thomason1005 and David.
Much appreciated. Thanks to you guys I understand now.

*Apologies for having missed your mentioning that the unique frames are mirrored on the engine side.

Possibly on account Blender is the only thing I'm relatively familiar with, I wrongfully assumed it was all done in Blender.

Best of luck with Overgrowth. I'm sure it's going to be awesome.
(Unfortunately I have to hack away at my game mountain before I buy it.
I now am considering adding it to my mountain just on account you guys helped me out.)

Thank you!

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