Plugins + Scripts Timeline: LightningBunnyWorkshop

The entire baking system revolves around one fundamental intention: replace the repetitive, mechanical, frame-by-frame manual adjustments in animation production with algorithms or physics simulation, so creators can focus on motion design and rhythm control instead of frame-level grunt work.

Time and energy are the scarcest resources for a creator. If a motion requires manually tweaking sixty keyframes just to achieve a natural follow-through effect, then the workflow itself is broken. The...

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babul said:

1. Okay, you've found that the biggest issue with the Walk Cycle Baker is the "hip" controller. This is because I've set the hip as the reference for the flip direction, where the direction the hip points is defined as "forward." You can think of it as drawing a centerline along that direction, and then the body parts on the left and right sides are flipped across this line. If you want to avoid left-right swaying, it's best to aim the hip controller's direction at the midpoint between the anchor controller and the limb on the opposite side (just like I showed in my video).
2. Do you need to use all fifteen body controllers? Not at all. However, in the current setup, the baker defaults to adding keyframes to every body controller that exists on the timeline when baking (this is because I don't normally use a root node). That's my oversight.
3. Regarding the calculation of the in-between frame. I should clarify that the walk cycle animation I understand is basically composed of three key poses: two contact poses and one passing pose. When we have an initial pose, it needs to conform to a basic structure, which is a pair of left-right structured limbs, with the anchor controller in front and the other side behind. The in-between frame is generated by first flipping the initial pose to create the next pose, then calculating the interpolated data between the pre-flip and post-flip poses, and finally adding height information (lifting the foot) to the controllers on the side that are not the anchor within the left-right structure.
4. If you want to use a custom in-between frame, there are two buttons below. The first button is "Calculate In-Between." It will add a new keyframe 0.5 seconds after the current keyframe indicated by the playhead. It does this by first calculating the flipped pose after the keyframe you've set the anchor for, and then taking the midpoint data between the pre-flip and post-flip poses. The second step is to apply the current keyframe indicated by the playhead as the in-between frame for the next bake.

After clicking the first step, you can make any adjustments you want to the calculated in-between frame, then click the second step to apply it. Once applied, you'll need to delete that in-between frame.

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babul said:

Hey, this is some really good stuff you made great job, instant replacement of original Timeline for me

I have a question about baking though - could you include tutorial on how to make good looking walking / turning animation? For example if I want a character to walk several steps, turn around in place, walk back and turn around again to the initial position. Sometimes when I move a controller like hips, all baked keyframes are swinging to the side.. or when using turn bake, entire person is suddenly jumping position.

Also, do we need all 15 body controls for this, like in your video (what about person atom main control? I see it's baking itself during walking if I enable it)? I thought maybe feet + head/chest are necessary, but what if you animate arm/hip rotation with manual force plugin (make few keyframes, then paste to match baked walking animation)? That way we still have synced arm/hip swing and let them move with physics instead of having them locked by controls. It's not very clear to me what is exactly expected to do walking animation that works and how does the baking system calculate mid frames.. and how to successfully use your own mid frame so it doesn't make animation look bad.

I had forever problems with making a good looking turning animation, just character turning around in place by doing few steps while rotating.. seeing some good examples would've been great.

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