- Standing with weight sizeably over one leg

Your current pose is nice, but it's awfully symmetric.  People very rarely stand with their weight perfectly distributed like this.  Next we'll try a more complicated pose with more weight over the right foot than over the left.

Click on the Pelvis bone and drag it to the Dojo-bot's right (your left).  Do not drag completely past the line of the right foot.  Notice that, since the Thigh Targets translate with the Pelvis, the knees shift naturally.

When the center of gravity shifts more towards one support than towards another, that forces the closer support to bear more weight than the further one, in order to remain statically balanced.  Stand up, move your hips back and forth, and you'll see what I mean.  Come on!  Do it!  There.  Didn't take me seriously, did you?  But now you see what I mean, right?

Your character is now sizeably over one leg, but it probably doesn't look as if it is bearing more weight on one leg than the other.  In fact, despite the fact that the center of gravity is in the zone of support, this character is off-balance!  That's immediately intuitive, right?  No?  Well then, click this link for a slight digression.

Your character is applying more force from their left leg than they could actually do if they wanted to hold this pose:  they're pushing down on their left leg without moving their pelvis.  You can't do it, so why should they?

To correct this, rotate the pelvis clockwise.

This makes it look like the right leg is bearing more weight than the left leg. I know that was an awful lot of explanation for such a little movement of the skeleton, but it's a basic principle.  You're animations will be stronger throughout if you have a good understanding of how legs need to be weighted, both in static poses and in action.

Render, keyframe and click one frame forward in the action.
 
 



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