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The Walk Cycle
The Walk Cycle
One of the first lessons that an animator learns is how to animate a walk cycle. The practical applications of acquiring this skill are obvious—it teaches you the basics of how motion works in animation, to name one thing. All characters walk, whether they're four-legged, limbless, or bipedal, just like us.
Let’s start at the beginning (a very good place to start). When you boil a walk down to its essence, what you are doing is falling and catching yourself. Gravity is trying to pull you into the ground, and you’re fighting it for a brief moment (while your foot is up) before giving in as you move forward. This is a VERY important concept to grasp. The biggest issue that crops up in a “bad walk” is a lack of weight. Remember: It’s a controlled fall. Your character is fighting constant gravity and recovering with each step. Use that knowledge when you’re planning your poses. Feel that weight.
When you’re starting your walk, there are only four poses that you need to worry about. It’s that simple.
You’ll notice that there aren’t arms on these poses either. We aren’t worried about arms right now, we’re worried about weight, balance, and feel. Use very loose shapes and FEEL for keyframes. You can always go back over what you do here, but the bones need to be right.
The Cycle:
The Cycle:
Your first Key is the stride position, also called the contact position. Think of it as “Heel and Toe” because the only things touching the ground are the toes of one foot and heel of the other. This is a weightless frame. The character is in the exquisite moment of free-fall. Yes, they are only falling for a millisecond, but right now is the moment when no muscles are fighting gravity.
BAM! The fall is over and now the character has their entire weight on the front foot, catching themselves from sprawling to the floor. This Key is the weight transfer frame. FEEL that weight when you are dreaming up this pose. It is a very important part of the walk, and where everything can go wrong if you aren’t careful. If you need to redo this frame 10 times, do it. It is worth the extra work.
This Key is where you are fighting gravity the hardest. Your calf muscle is pushing your entire body weight up to throw yourself into the next falling motion. The non-weight foot is beginning to move forward to catch the body from the inevitable plummet.
Finally you have the hangtime moment; the Lift frame. It is the apex of the height of the walk, before gravity takes control and the process begins again (with the other leg).
Once you have these four poses in place it’s just a matter of repeating once for the other leg and then filling in the in-betweens! Of course, it still takes a lot to infuse your walks with personality and character, but by mastering the simplified basics you’ll have a firm foundation to build on. Remember to feel the weight in a walk – that’s essential!
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