The
Footstep System was developed within the context of a research
project. Inpired by Character Studio, Dirk Bialluch worked on
the procedural creation of walk cycles based on footsteps. The
tool was developed as a Maya MEL script.
The
very first version consisted of a simple expression that used
a trigger flag to move two foot skeletons to a destination position.
The target position was defined in the 3D scene by two footstep
locators. These locators were moved through the scene gradually
to generate a continuous walk cycle. The short movie Dancing
Yeti was developed using this expression. Beside controling
the feet the expression also controlled hip and arm movement.
The trigger flag method required a continueous animation playback.
Thus it was impossible to scrub through the animation or play
it in reverse without baken the procedural simulation to animation
curves.
From
this original expression Dirk Bialluch developed the final Footstep
System. The biped system was extended to support up to eight
feet. Thus even complicated animations of animals with more
than four legs could be solved procedurally. Hip and arm movement
were also integrated into the system. In addition the concept
was modified to support scrubbing and reverse playback. An extensive
user interface was developed that supported preset handling
due to the large number of parameters. The Footstep System was
used to animate more than 50 characters of the PC game Pizza
Connection 2.
