Using the basic "Monty" rig, Marc shows how to animate a successful basic walk cycle.
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| Monty |
You can find Marc's walk cycle tutorial here. The tutorial uses the free Monty rig, one of the rigs that we recommend for student use in the early stages of learning animation is the Monty Rig.
Monty was created back in 2007 by Raveen Rajadorai, and is free for download at Highend3D.com.
About Monty
Monty is "a simple ball with legs. You can control his eyebrows, eyes and do squash and stretch on him". He is cute, easy to use; you can change his colour and he looks nice in a hat. Like most rigs, the Monty rig has its quirks.
Monty is "a simple ball with legs. You can control his eyebrows, eyes and do squash and stretch on him". He is cute, easy to use; you can change his colour and he looks nice in a hat. Like most rigs, the Monty rig has its quirks.
Monty Rig - Common Problems & Solutions
How to Turn on Monty's Brow Controls
Monty's brow controllers are Nurbs surfaces. If you tick Nurbs Surfaces under the Show tab in your Viewport, the brow controls will pop up as five small spheres running across his forehead. You can individually select and rotate them to get various brow expressions. To do this you must have "Select Surface Objects" turned off.
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| Marc Stevenson |
To get the best quality playback for Monty, it helps to set him to Smooth Mode before you begin animating. Click on his head controller (the box around his head) to find the smooth slider and set it to 1.
Download Monty
You can find Monty here. You can find Marc's Walk Cycle Tutorial here.
Have Monty Take Small Steps
When using Monty to create a walk cycle, try to avoid having Monty take really big steps. Small steps are easier to control, and lead to fewer problems. Big steps will cause IK problems with Monty’s knees, because the his legs will stretch out too much and the knees will "pop".
The pole vectors are the little crosses in front of Monty's knees. They can be a bit hard to keyframe, so we recommend, as part of setting up the rig, moving them some distance (a few grid units) further away from Monty's knees, when you start. This will help stop "popping" of his knees later in the animation.
Avoid Animating Monty in Profile
Monty looks a bit strange viewed from the side. Rather like Hello Kitty or Snoopy, he doesn't turn well. It's best to stage Monty from a front or three-quarter view.
How does Monty scale?
Monty doesn't scale. You will have to scale the geometry of your set instead.
To see a quick 90 second demonstration of Monty (recommended) watch this video below
Most of all, have fun with Monty. He's an entertaining, flexible rig, and you can do tons of cool stuff with him. Check out this funny "take" below.
Below are some fun character walks with Monty by Escape Studios tutor Neil Whitman.
Where is the tutorial?
You can find the Monty Walk Cycle Tutorial here.
Locomotion Resources
To see more resources on animating walks, see the links below.
- Animating the ZigZag Walk by Alex Williams
- Learn to animate a basic walk with "Monty" by Alex Williams
- Animate a character walk with Alex Williams
- Walk Cycle Tutorial with Amanda Costa
- 100 ways to walk with Kevin Parry
- How to stop feet sliding in a walk cycle with Alex Williams
- Character walks with Houman Soroushnia
- Escape Studios' Vimeo Tutorial Channel
The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To apply for our BA/MArt in 3D Animation, follow this link. To apply for our storyboarding evening class, visit this page here. For the next 12 week animation course, click here. And to apply for the next evening class in Producing Animation, see this page.
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