Due: Tuesday, November 18 (Part 1)

• Turn in GIF animation of your walk cycle via the Google Classroom assignment

• Part 2: Due with Final Portfolio

WIP Deadlines:

• Saturday, November 8 @ 6:00 pm: Reading: pg. 102 - 131 of The Animator’s Survival Kit by Richard Williams (it's a lot of images, but read the words and try to imagine it animated, too).

• Tuesday, November 11: WIP  - Sketch the main frames of your walk cycle: Contact (2), Passing, Down, and Up positions

For this project you will animate a complete (neutral) walk cycle for your character, in two stages.  In Part 1 you'll animate a rough cycle with the basic movement; the final version (Part 2) will add follow-through and overlapping action, and you'll clean up the lines and add color.

Part 1: Neutral Walk Cycle

Animating a walk cycle is a rite of passage for animators - it's both tricky and important for communicating a character. There are a great many resources on the subject, but most are a variation on Richard Williams' discussion in The Animator's Survival Kit, which you will read for this assignment. 

Instructions for a Basic Walk:

(from the reading)

Tips:

• As always, start with thumbnail sketches of your key frames. Create your walk first using a simplified figure (as shown above), and add detail when you're sure it's correct.

• Subtle movements carry a lot of weight.  It’s easy to overdo things like rotation and the up and down movement of the head. (But also: don't be afraid to exaggerate!)

• Consider animating the arms last – their movement can completely transform the “feel” of the walk cycle.

• Create a “floor” as a point of reference on another layer – it can help you visualize where the feet should be hitting.  When you are finished, you can delete or hide the layer.

• This kind of animation is notoriously challenging – don’t feel frustrated if you don’t get it correct right away (or be ok with the frustration :).

Part 2: Final Walk Cycle

In this stage you will add follow through & overlapping action, and do some "finishing" work on your walk cycle. Walk cycles look more believable with lots of overlapping movement.  Adding small amounts of animation to the rotation of the torso, the position of the head, the sway of the hands, etc. help sell the overall effect.

Follow through & overlapping action can give your character weight and personality. This principle reinforces the idea that an animated character exists in a world bound by physics principles.

The two terms are closely related:

• Follow through: Loosely connected parts of a body/object is always a few steps behind and will continue to move after the character has come to a complete stop.

• Overlapping action: Different parts of a body will move at different rates based on their location and mass.

Follow throughs and overlapping actions are usually added after the main body parts of character have been animated.