Getting a multi-legged creature to walk convincingly is one of the big challenges in animation. And it usually takes a huge number of keyframes! Which is mind numbing work and takes forever. God forbid your art director asks you to change something about it!
So I decided to create a mechanism that makes this a straightforward process. Based on a bezier curve shrinkwrapped to a deformed plane, along which a reference object is moved using two or more keyframes, I built a sort of "carriage" for each foot, using the changing value of the reference object to calculate, through a whole range of drivers, the behaviour of an "empty" that would be used to control that foot's motion.
My intention is to use Ziggy in a number of sequences, which might well have been impossible for me to accomplish single-handedly otherwise.
The finished result.
Here's what the invisible mechanism looks like while its operating. Lots of simple meshes, empties, constraints and a few bezier curves. Plus around 50 drivers.
The timing and gait is adjustable in a range of ways too long to describe here.