It bothered me a little bit that the ant animations on Straight Line Curves made it look as though the ants are sliding along without moving their legs. It’s a small detail, but still, as I said, it bothered me.
Let’s make a simple walk cycle for an ant. We start with a still frame.
It seems that ants are insecure about their balance. They have six feet so that they can be guaranteed of having a tripod on the ground at all times. While 3 legs are on the ground and moving backwards, the other 3 are off the ground and moving forwards. Then they swap roles. Here are the two tripods they prefer.
Let’s call the one on the left a left tripod since the ant has two feet on the left side, and similarly let’s call the one on the right a right tripod. We can make a basic walk cycle in 4 frames as follows.
- Left tripod forwards
- Middle
- Right tripod forwards
- Middle
The resulting walk cycle looks like this.
When you put this walk cycle into the placemat spiral animation, it looks like this.
Much better!
Outside the Box 