> Quote - Did you notice that the walk path by default moves off the computer screen and ends up somewhere outside your premises requiring you to zoom out to find it?

No I never noticed that. Probably because it is not so. What you do or don't see through the camera has nothing to do with the thing you are looking at, and everything to do with the camera you are viewing it through. If you don't like the view, adjust the camera. Also note that the start of a walk path will be directly benith the origin of the BODY actor of the figure that is active when the path is created.

Quote - You are then told that you can shorten this path but after numerous attempts I personally have ended up with a walk path that looks like a string of convoluted pretzels and of course your character follows that path perfectly and walks as gracefully as a brick dancing in the air!

There are two ways you can change the length of the path.

1). You can scale the walk path (WP), using either its overall Scale dial, or the zScale dial, or any other combination of its scale dials.

2). You can change the length of the path by dragging its Control Points with the cursor. If you are going to use this method to change the length, you may find it less confusing if you remove all the intermediate Control Points first. A walk path has four Control Points that can't be deleted, the points at either terminus of the path as walked, and two, what I call, "tweak points" that are not part of the path as walked, but serve to shape the curve at the ends of the path. Any other control points can be deleted. To delete a point, hold down the Alt key, and click the point. The default path has six points, so you can delete the middle two. To add a point, just click on the path where you want to add the point.

A quick way to make a straight path is to set the path's xScale to zero.

Paths are props, so you can save them to the Props palette for future use.

Quote - So if you have succeeded getting your character to follow a moderate walk path where exactly is this sequence when you want to edit it or move it in your animation?

The part of the walk cycle that that represents following the path, is stored as translations and rotations in the BODY actor. Each key frame of the animation has its own set of translation and rotation values. You can edit these values via the dials in the BODY's Parameters palette. You can also edit the Graph for a dial, which is often a better way to go. Click the arrow at the right of a dial to access the Graph (see image above). Note that if the walk cycle has been saved to a new animation layer, you need to select that layer via the Keyframe Editor, before you will be able to edit the values.

Personally I always save a walk cycle to the Base Layer (see image above), so that I can edit the animation without having to select a different layer, but perhaps that is because I don't understand how to use layers properly.

Quote - So I wonder is it just me or are there other people who equally find it difficult to use? It would be nice to know because Smith Micro might need to take a relook at Walk Designer.

The walk designer is difficult to use, and there is certainly a lot of room for improvement in the walk designer. On the other hand, it can do some stuff that would be very tedious without the walk designer.