• Creating a Walk Cycle

    Studying the art of animation requires us to spend some time studying the movement of the human body. When looking at a movement in its entirety, the process of creating an animated illustration becomes very daunting. But, not to fear; animating complex movements, like a walk cycle, can easily be accomplished if we break down the movement into key poses. Good animators value the importance of poses. Establishing the key positions of the movement allows the animator to quickly consume the movement, break down the moving parts in smaller pieces and speeds up the entire workflow.

    This week, we are going to continue our exploration of movement by focusing our efforts on all of the moving parts of a basic, human walk cycle. Through this discussion, we?ll learn about the importance of arcs, spacing and poses. Animating a walk cycle would be impossible if we don?t understand all the associated poses, so we are going to examine the key poses of the walk cycle first and focus on how to illustrate those in our animation.

  • The Walk Cycle (50pts)

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    Project Due: Week 09

    This week, we are going to animate a basic, 25 frame walk cycle. This is going to be a two part exercise, with the first part focusing on the primary movement of the body and the legs. Next week, we are going to finish this animation and add in secondary movements in the shoulders, the arms and head.

    Instructions: Turn to page 108 in the Animator's Survival Guide. Closely examine the structure and poses of the walk cycle example found in this section. One of the challenges associated with created a walk cycle is that there are many different "formulas" for a walk cycle. The speed of the movement is going to dictate how many frames you have to work with. For our walk cycle, however, we are going to focus on a standard 5 pose cycle; Contact, Down, Passing, Up and Contact. These five poses will allow us to quickly generate accurate in-between frames for our animation. Study the poses. Notice how the contact poses feels very strong and stable. The passing pose has a lot of energy in it as does the up pose. Also, the movement and placement of the hips is an important element in a walk cycle. The movement should generate a natural "Rise" and "Fall" of the body; a movement that is created through the hips.

    Once you have studied the poses, start illustrating the five key poses: Contact, Down, Passing, Up and Contact. Determine the spacing between these frames and begin to drawn all of the in-between frames. Again, don't worry about drawing the arms. We have a lot to do before we can focus on those. This is going to be a loop-able walk cycle; meaning that we should be able to repeat these 25 frames over and over again without any indication of repeating frames. Loop-able walk cycles are more easily constructed if the character is stationary on the screen, so at the end of the illustration of this movement your character will look like they are walking in place. Please ensure you project includes the following required elements before you complete this assignment:

    • Your animation must include the 5 key poses for a walk cycle: Contact, Down, Passing, Up and Contact
    • Please ensure you create the appropriate sense of weight by establishing a natural rise and fall of the hips
    • Your character should be stationary (it should look like it is walking on a treadmill)
    • Do Not animate or include the arms
    • Duration: 25 Frames (at least)
    • Frame Size: 1280 x 720 pixels
    • Final Render File Type from Photoshop = .MOV
    • Format (the codec) of Rendered Movie: H.264

    Examples of Successful Projects

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    Check out this awesome project! The animation below is an example of successful student project. Use the following animation to help guide you to your end results. Such great overlapping action! Great work!

    All Finished with your Homework?

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    After you have saved the project file on your personal external storage device (like a thumb drive), please upload your Photoshop Document (.psd) and your rendered movie (.Mov) to the Walk Cycle Pt.1 dropbox on D2L.

    Before you upload your files to D2L, please ensure your files meet the following naming conventions:

    • lastname_gcom_400_walk_cycle_01.psd
    • lastname_gcom_400_walk_cycle_01.mov
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