WILWA #1- Lifting a Foot

What I Learned While Animating #1

Lifting a Foot

From my Experience Animating "Ballie Jump"

When I first animated Ballie lifting his foot to move back on the block I did it like he was taking a step. He lifted his foot high and didn't let it touch the ground until he was placing it down. It sounds fine in writing, but it looked off somehow. I finally figured out why by acting out the shot myself (another reason to film your own reference instead of just using YouTube).

The action looked strange because in real life people don't lift their feet- they lift their heel and the foot follows. It's true. Remember, even though you probably often animate IK legs, real legs are an FK chain. The foot doesn't move the leg, the upper and lower leg bones move the foot.You're probably sitting right now. Try moving your foot to the right a bit, enough that you have to lift your leg some. What did you notice? Your whole foot probably didn't lift off the ground. Your ankle lifted and your heel lifted, but your toes just dragged, still contacting the floor.

This is how people move their feet when just adjusting them or taking a small step. The larger the movement, the higher the leg, ankle, and foot lift. The smaller the movement, the more the toes drag. I believe that in forward movements it is more likely that the whole foot will leave the floor, simply because friction makes it hard to shove your foot forward without lifting it, but I'm sure that's not always true.

Now back to the shot. Ballie's step was tiny, but not small enough to just drag the toes. There had to be a little lift in the movement as he clears the ledge. Here's the moment from the animation. It has a small arc, and it's hard to see in the screenshots, so I drew up some diagrams to better show you what is happening.

#1- The foot is on the ground and the toes rest on the ledge.

#2- The ankle lifts and the toes move up to clear the ledge. If the toes just dragged, they could get caught on the ledge, and Ballie doesn't want that.

#3- Now that his toes are clear, Ballie begins to conserve energy by letting his his foot go back to the ground, the toes dragging. Remember, everything always wants to conserve energy when possible.

#4- The toes drag back until the heel comes down in the new foot position.

And that's it. It's simple, but it took me some time to figure out that this was the right way to do this small movement.

Questions or comments? Post them below. I'll post another WILWA (not the best acronym, but not the worst) after I upload my next animation. The next one may be a dog one, so it could have some good quadruped animation tips/tricks.

Until next time!