Contact, down, passing, and high point are the four primary poses for a walking cycle to review, which is animated depending upon the character on its mood: if it is violent, fun-loving, downhearted, etc.
How to create a walk cycle
Walk cycles are broken into 4 keyframes; they are Forward Contact Point, Passing Pose, Back Contact Point, and Passing Pose. Between these key poses frames that are drawn which are known as in-betweens/In-betweening are either drawn by hand or by using computer software to introduce between them.
The walk cycle is of how many frames?
We raise our foot minimum, so conserve energy is used for walking. Starting with the other foot we repeat the cycle. In short, 8 frames are considered for a walk cycle. To give power and balance, the legs and arms are always on opposite sides in a conventional gait.
In this video, we can see how the walk cycle is animated
While animating a walk cycle the main key is to understand how the feet are connected with the ground and how the legs PUSH THE MASS of the body forward.
In four stages our MASS moves when we walk:
- With the ground our front foot makes contact
- On that foot, the mass of the body falls and the leg bends, sheltering the fall
- To forward our mass again we use the momentum to propel
- The whole body weight is supported by one leg while for the next step the other passes forward.
The Key Frames
The three keyframes (1, 2, and 3 in the list above) are needed to animate a walking cycle and (4) the passing position for one breakdown position.
For both feet to work best, most walking cycles use 9 frames per step = 18 frame cycles. But here in this animation presentation is slower – for both legs 24 frames walk cycle at 24 fps is used. To create walk cycle animation following tips are important
A very important question to understand is:
- Where is the MASS?
The mass should be slightly forward and above the feet.
Your character should walk fast when it leans forward.
The common mistake should be looked for – each frame should be checked and the body should not be left behind. First, move the big mass and then move the rest of the body this is the best way to animate.
2. On the ground keep your feet!
Keep the feet on the ground with good contact – don’t let the feet slip.
The logic for it is here:
IT CAN NOT MOVE if a foot supports fully the body weight.
Be sure while animating to decide which foot should support the weight, and FREEZE it and tweens must be disabled.
Foot keyframes must be deleted until the next frame you reach when the next foot move again – and the weight is taken on the other foot.
3. Mass of the body goes up and down
Our bodies are pushed as we walk and move upward as well as forward, with each step we rise and fall.
In keyframe #2, the bounce is the lowest part, as it bends under when the weight is received by the front leg.
The passing position is the highest part when we are standing straight on one leg.
While making animating walk cycles we make 7 common mistakes
In motion design, character animation is the most difficult task as it requires a lot of basic knowledge and a non-segregated procedure. For a beginner, it will be difficult to spot a mistake if a character looks extraordinary because in one of many actions it is hidden. From this list of common mistakes, you will learn how to limit your area of search.
- Phases from hell
The body parts’ arms and legs should move in opposite phases on the same side of the body. The right- hand moves backward, when the right leg is in the front.
2. When the parts of the body move simultaneously
The movements of the body parts should not be synchronized, when all the main movements start from the pelvis or torso when the rest of the body is ‘lagging’ behind. The hand’s frames should be behind the leg i.e. 2-3 frames behind.
3. By the position a scene is not a cycle offset when moving around
Walk animations have two types: the background shifts when a character walks in place and a moving character walk with a static background. From a static background a character moves from point A to point B when creating a walk cycle it’s a task, by moving a looped walk by the Position many beginners try to solve it. But it doesn’t work because it looks like in the old platform games the character moves on the ground and it comes out in a very smooth movement.
First, you should draw the key poses (Passing pose, Contact pose), in the scene mark the future steps of the positions, for the key poses, and between them create some intermediate poses. In order to move it, the character’s position in the scene should be taken into account right away. Of course, you can cheat, but preferably, if you do it exactly this way it will be better, you will have no problem and around the scene, the character is not floating.
4. The upper and lower positions are not eminent enough – differences between the two
Our body when moving up and down, the weight shifts from one leg to the other, as we walk.
It happens when you forget to animate the body when you animate the legs and arms when it is going up and down. It looks like a character is simply moving straight, it looks like you didn’t animate and is not moving anything. A viewer will notice the character is weightless when there is a vertical movement, but it is hardly noticeable. It looks like the character’s legs and arms are simply hanging and it is being pulled.
5. The two sides of the body pose which is unbalanced
The character walks like a limp when the unbalanced poses for the two sides of the body occur. This is seen when the students usually begin animating a walk by creating one step, and then they create another step, and for the second step, they flip the same pose. If the character is in profile or full face only then this technique will work. If you draw a character in three quarters, the legs won’t be identical and the position will not tally because the movement of the legs will be in two separate planes. Copy and pasting the pose will not work out because they won’t match. In this case, the paths will be the same; there will be a different location, as each leg is animated separately.
6. Supporting leg which has dissimilar movement
In this case, the character looks like its limp and jerking. The foot should move in a straight line while it’s on the ground and in speed, there should be no change. The graph may not be linear when a character is rising afoot. The body inclined forwards strongly, in the Contact phase we should remember that our body has the least balance, and is falling basically.
In the Passing phase under the body, the supporting leg must be in the center, are put in the maximum balance and the leg seems to pick up on its own. In this phase, the legs’ correct positioning allows and gives the feeling of avoiding an uneven walk and gives the necessary accuracy.
7. Wooden feet syndrome
With maximum details, our feet should be animated and take the most active part while walking, because in different conditions a foot can be very elastic. On its toes the character rises, it has to be bent here if this is not done, the foot will look wooden and, below the floor level it will go. Always take the floor into account when animating the foot.
Srilalitha
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