16.0

80 AutoRigger and CMotion
Set the Stride value to 60cm. Now turn your attention to the list of objects in the Objects menu below and
select one of the legs (L_Leg or R_Leg) in the list. CINEMA 4D will automatically assigne a Lift (P.Y) action
to the legs in accordance with the previously selected template. A set of parameters will be made available
below. In this case you will see the Lift function as a Child object of the L_Leg (or R_Leg). This is an Action
that, as the name says, creates a lifting motion so the corresponding foot rises during the walk motion. Try it
out by clicking on the green Play button (the green arrow just below the Viewport) and making your character
walk in place and the feet will be lifted. If this action would not have been added automatically, you would
have had to fine-tune this manually. Select the L_Leg object in the CMotion object‘s Attribute Manager and
click on the Add button. Because the Lift function is defined as a default function, we did not have to select it
separately. Add the same action to the R_Leg object.
Stop the animation, if necessary, and jump back to frame 0. Select the Lift
(P.Y) parameter; its settings will be
displayed below. Increase the Lift value to 10 cm and don’t forget to do the same for the other leg.
Alternatively you can right-click on the already modified parameter in the Object list and select Copy. Then
select and right-click on the other leg and select Paste. As you can see, you have now copied the lift action
from one leg to the other. If you play the animation again you will see that the character lifts its legs much
higher than before when it walks.
You will find another Lift action in the Object list, which lies below the Root in the hierarchy. This controls the
rising and sinking motion of the pelvis during the walk cycle. You may have already noticed that this motion is
very sedated during the walk cycle. Set this parameter’s Lift (P.Y.) value to 3 cm and play the animation again.
You should now have a more realistic pelvic movement. So far so good. Now we will continue with the arms,
which are still stretched out to the sides and of course don’t represent the natural position of a person’s arms
when walking. To reposition the arms next to the torso, select an arm in the CMotion Attribute Manager. Again,
several parameters will be made available below, including Horiz. and Vert. These values affect the orientation
of the selected arm or the Hand Goals of the respective arm to which the arm is oriented.
Set the left arm’s Vert value to -45cm and its Horiz value to 45 cm; set the right arm’s Vert and Horiz values
each to –45 cm. Now both arms lie slightly bent alongside the torso. Next, we want to make the arms swing
in tune with the walk cycle. So far we have only worked with Actions that were already included in the list.
Actions are an integral part of CMotion. A character’s movements are defined by the use of Actions and the
fine-tuning of their parameters. Select an arm from the Attribute Manager’s CMotion list and assign a Push
(P.Z.) parameter to it. To do so, select the arm, then the parameter from the drop-down list and then click on
the Add button next to the list. The Push (P.Z.) parameter will now appear in the list below the arm to which it
was assigned. Select the parameter and set its Push (P.Z.) value to 30 cm. Right-click on the graph below and
select Spline Presets/Sin from the context menu. This replaces the straight line with a sinus curve.