I'm animating several robots for a little film I'm working on.  I have a nice walk animation completed for both robots and am now going through the age-old problem of planting their feet on the ground when the floor is visible.

I put a one-sided square the size of the foot on the ground and move the body so the foot stays on the square.  One frame at a time.   Ive also done it by looking up at the square from under the grid after I've made it slightly transparent.  both work , but is there a better, faster way to do this?

My method works fine, but it takes forever.

Quote - ...am now going through the age-old problem of planting their feet on the ground when the floor is visible.

Yes it can be a problem. Poser ships with a Python script that can sometimes help "dropFigToFloorAllFrames.py". Running this script should ensure that one of the figures feet is in conatct with the ground in each frame.

In guess the ideal solution would be to get the figure working reasonably well in the Walk Designer. That can be very hard to do, but might be easier for something like a robot, where the walk may not need to look like a natural human walk.

is this the robot whose feet come off in older poser versions?  keyframing every frame is time-consuming, but as poser users have learnt, it may look goofy otherwise.

Quote - I'm animating several robots for a little film I'm working on.  I have a nice walk animation completed for both robots and am now going through the age-old problem of planting their feet on the ground when the floor is visible.

I put a one-sided square the size of the foot on the ground and move the body so the foot stays on the square.  One frame at a time.   Ive also done it by looking up at the square from under the grid after I've made it slightly transparent.  both work , but is there a better, faster way to do this?

My method works fine, but it takes forever.

Have you Used your graph Editor to select all the hip keys and lower them on the Y axis all at once??

One frame at a time is NOT  the way to animate or edit an animation Please dont listen to uninformed/ inexperienced people who WRONGLY say it is.

Cheers

I guess I worded my post incorrectly.  No problem with the feet contacting the ground, it's the "sliding foot" routine I'm talking about.  The walk cycles are made up of a few key poses and a little tweaking so I agree -

 One frame at a time is NOT  the way to animate or edit an animation Please dont listen to uninformed/ inexperienced people who WRONGLY say it is.

But once I have the cycle done, the feet skate across the floor rather than staying in one position during the half stride.  It's repositioning that foot to stay in the same spot that takes all the time.  Obviously, when you walk, your "plant foot" doesn't move during the half stride.  I'm trying to avoid the look that the figure is ice skating across the floor.

Once I have the plant done for both feet in the full stride, I wish there was a way to move all the positions up to the next stride - if that makes any sense.

ockham has a foot-sliding script, as mentioned earlier.

note to self: wolf (and everybody else) hates keyframing every frame.

The sliding is indeed a problem.

Take a simple animation.
Start from Zero pose at frame 1, and lower the arms to the hip at at frame 30.
Run the animation, and you see??

In the first frames the arms go UP, before starting to go down.
And that is just one joint.

Turn the head left at frame 30
And the head will turn to the right before turning to the left .

Poser main group is the hip.

To get to the feet, you cross mulitple joints, that all do the reverse before going the "wanted" way.
This in great part creates the sliding of the feet.

Other problem.
Start with a figure at 85%
Set frame 10 of a 30 frame animations at figure = 100%

Check frame 13 and you will see your figure at 105% before coming back tot 100% at frame 30.

In turning and bending bodyparts of a normal figure this gives some very realistic views.

For "HARD" moves, as feet on the floor that may NOT slide, it can be a nightmare.
You have to go in the "graph" mode, change the Interpollation mode.
Page 340 in the PoserPro2010 manual.

Hope this helps a bit.

Thanks folks.  I'm still on Poser 7, but I'll try to find the info.

quote
For "HARD" moves, as feet on the floor that may NOT slide, it can be a nightmare.
You have to go in the "graph" mode, change the Interpollation mode.
Page 340 in the PoserPro2010 manual.

The procedure is the same for P7 only the page is different :-)
Poser does some overrun between poses. That is often the sliding part.

Is there  not an automatic option to keyframe every X frames?
Thought so. Have to look back.

Quote -  note to self: wolf (and everybody else) hates keyframing every frame. 

meh, I hate keyframing ANY frame!

Hi
Then your problem is that the curve of the frames for the hips "Z" or forward movement
is likely spline interpolated (needs to be linear)

and is too steep or too shallow

look at the attached Video

DORK WALKS

There are only SEVEN keyframes
the figure was walked in place with posers
rather Lame walk designer.
however his forward motion was created
by changing the value of the last few frames of the Z translation
raising or lowering the linear  curve height until his footfalls matched his forward motion

@Miss Nancy it is not a matter of Like or dislike
you are free to sit and  keyframe for every frame  if that pleases you.
however I take exception to your frequent assertions that this is the only way to get your animation to "look right"
this OPINION is a false assertion and misleads aspiring character animators in this forum.

Cheers

Wolf,

Looks like this is the ticket!  As soon as I get back from vacation I'll give it a shot.  Thanks for the info.