Blender 2.5 Character Animation Cookbook

Run, Forrest! (in cycles)

Whether you're animating for a game or film, you're likely to face the need to create cycled animations, and that is especially true for the former.

Run and walk cycles are normally created in two ways: the character may stay in a fixed position, while his feet "slide" on the ground with its positioning set at a later stage; or the character really makes two steps forward, while Blender takes care of appending the beginning of the next cycle where the first ended—making the character really move forward in a straight line. The latter is what we'll cover here.

How to do it...

1. Open the file 008-RunCycle.blend. It has our character Otto in its resting pose, ready for our work. We're going to create a funny jog run cycle. When ...