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I'm animating a character for a game and I need help. I can animate static actions just fine because the character stays in place (like breathing or pointing a finger), but I'm completely lost as to how to proceed with animations like walking or jumping where the character has to move forward.

It is my understanding that it's better not to animate the root bone if the animation is made for games, but I can't figure out how to make the walking animation stay in place. I'm moving the pelvis/hip bone forward with every keyframe, I mean that's the normal procedure right? Otherwise I don't understand how would you animate a walking cycle.

The question is, how can I make the armature/mesh in place like you see in your usual game animation like this? I'm trying to make it cycle by copying the cycle to the end of the current timeline, but because the armature is moving, it begins walking right at the start of the first animation instead of the place where the last frame is.

Here's a gif of my animation, can upload the .blend if you need it.

enter image description here

Thank you very much.

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2 Answers 2

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It's simple (if uncomfortable for an animator!). You have to keyframe the pelvis bone's movement but ONLY on the up/down left/right axis. Don't move it back and forward at all, and your character will walk in place like on a treadmill.

This is annoying because you can't even perceive if the motion is right unless it's actually MOVING around!

So, to save your current project you can go to the timeline or dopesheet side list, pick the track that contains the bone's forward movement, and simply delete it. The bone will keep doing its job as usual, only now it shouldn't move forward anymore.

enter image description here

I tested this on a very complicated rig, full of IKs, so that's why it looks weird, but if you look only at the shoulder bone, after deleting the Z-location it keeps going up and down as normal, it just stopped moving forward.

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I'm moving the pelvis/hip bone forward with every keyframe, I mean that's the normal procedure right?

I think you don't move those bones forward. Animate the character in place, as if they're on a treadmill.

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