Confused by the heights of the different positons

in the example the up and contact position are closer to the dashed horizontal line than the passing position. Shouldn't the passing position be when the hips/head are highest because the supporting leg is straight? Then wouldn't the up position would be the next highest after passing because of a slight bend in the supporting leg? passing, up, contact, down. I got confused cause i watched a person walk with a grid overlay and the body was highest when the leg was straight, in the passing position.


  • tanya (tanya53) replied

    Hi,

    If you notice in the up position the right foot is bent, thus he is sort of standing on one toe.  We're taller when we stand on our toes.  It is great to watch reference video, the thing to remember is we all walk slightly differently from one another and there are many different ways to walk.  I'm sure Wayne will have a better explanation. 

  • Adrian Bellworthy replied

    That's a really good observation Puddles,
    Following on from Tanya's points,

    You may notice that Stomp is a little different to your human reference,
    Stomp has no body, I mean he's not lonely, he has friends, of course he does, Rivet and Torque.

    But he is just a head on legs, or you could say he has his face on his hips.
    Then look again, notice the rotation of the hips, I mean Stomps head (Hips on a human reference), the ear on the side of the standing leg is at its highest point and the opposite ear is at its lowest point, and with Stomps head being spherical and not flatter on top like hips, the centre point of the head (hips) is, and should be, lower than the up position.
    The up position is higher because the standing leg is now pushing the Hips, Stomps head, forward and up. And both ears are level because the opposite leg is raised.

    The head on a human doesn't rotate in this way when we walk, go back to your human reference and try and look only at the hips and ignore the body and head for a comparison.

    Hope this helps!

  • Wayne Dixon replied

    Great points from both Adrian and T there.

    It's great that you are looking at reference Puddles - keep doing that!

    Every walk is going to be different.
    But one thing that happens when someone walks is that when the leg is straight (around the passing position) the hip pushes up on that side (by push I technically mean rotation).  So even though the leg is straight, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is the highest point in a walk.

    This hip rotation is counter intuitive to what you would expect.  You would think because the non loaded side is swinging through it would go higher, but no.  Human locomotion is lazy....I mean efficient.  Fun fact - chimpanzees actually raise the non loaded hip when they walk....same with young humans, but that changes as their brains learn more efficient locomotion.....that's humans, not the other apes)

    Anyway, I hope this gives you some food for thought.

    But at the end of the day, it's about how your pixels move.  Your animation is going to be different to mine, but at the end of the day it's about 'if we pushed this part this way it would look better'