Foot Sliding in Game Animation
Feet glide over the ground while walking
Also known as: Foot sliding · Skating feet · Character slides when walking · Foot slide Unreal · Foot slide Unity · Walk animation sliding
Quick answer
Foot sliding happens when the speed a character moves through the world does not match the speed of the feet in the animation, so the planted foot drifts over the ground. Match the character's movement speed to the speed the animation was made for, or scale the playback rate to fit, blend between walk and run cycles in a blend space, and use root motion or stride warping so the animation drives or follows the movement. Foot IK can lock planted feet in place.
How to fix it
Measure how far the character travels in one cycle in the animation, and set the game speed so it matches, or the other way around. Make sure every contact pose plants the foot, and that the cycle keeps a constant speed of the root. Sliding during turns and starts and stops is common, so add start, stop and turn animations. In Unreal Engine, stride warping and foot placement nodes help, and Unity's Animation Rigging has foot constraints.
Tools that use Foot Sliding in Game Animation
See also
Root Motion
Movement driven by the animation, not the controller
Blend Space and Blend Tree
Mixing animations by a parameter such as speed
Foot IK
Planting feet on uneven ground
Walk and Run Cycles
The looping base of character locomotion
Animation State Machine
Graph of animation states and transitions
Animation Blending
Interpolate poses between clips