Procedural Walk Animation

Animating legs: time-consuming and tedious? There’s a better way!

This innovative node setup offers a pre-rigged character and a user-friendly procedural animation system built with Geometry Nodes. Simplify leg animation for your creatures, regardless of leg count, with this intuitive tool. Here’s how:

* Set up IK Rig: Add “Copy location” constraints to the control points of your IK rig.

* Assign Vertex Groups: Within the “Copy location” constraint settings, assign corresponding vertex groups to the vertex group option for accurate animation. Make sure to choose the “Procedural Walk Modifier” as the target in the constraint for the animation to function correctly.

Tips:

* Customizable Leg Count: Easily adjust the number of legs on your character by following these simple steps:

* Select the “Procedural Walk Modifier” object.

* Press TAB to enter edit mode.

* Locate the middle vertex where your legs are connected to the body.

* To add more legs:

* Extrude additional points from this middle vertex using the E key (number of extrusions equals the number of additional leg drivers).

* Create a separate vertex group for each the new leg segments and assign it to the vertex (each vertex to it’s separate vertex group).

* Add a Copy Location Constraint to the control points that you want to follow the new legs and choose the vertex group of the target vertex and assign it is the constraint.

* To remove legs:

* Select the unwanted leg segments in edit mode.

* Press X to delete them.

* Streamlined Workflow: Ensure smooth animation by resetting the timeline after modifying animation settings.

* Fine-Tuning Animation: While the node setup simplifies animation, some advanced tweaking may be required to achieve perfectly natural-looking movement, especially on complex surfaces.

Current limitations:

* The animation system may not perform perfectly on complex surfaces and may occasionally glitch, future updates are planned to address these issues.

* In some instances, the animation might not achieve a completely organic look.

Get started animating walking creatures in Blender today!