The Anatomy of the Walk
The Walk is probably the most important animation an animator must master. Every person in the world has their own specific walk. A walk can show mood, emotion, personality and more. Every animation student should have a copy of “Cartoon Animation” by Preston Blair - a book that’s trained countless animators over the decades. Here’s a sample page to give you a taste:
This is a perfect example of not just understanding the anatomy of a walk, but also planning out the animation before creating a single frame. With the image above, one could easily set out the framing rate by studying the speed of the movements.
For example:
The walk could be timed out on a frame rate of 6s or 8s
The run, since it's faster than the walk could be timed out on 4s or 6s
The tip toe's frame rate is slower than both the walk and run, so it can be on 12s or 16s
But the frame rate depends on with the characters are doing and how it fits into the animation sequence.
ANATOMY OF A WALK
Walks are very complex. Not only do the feet have to move across the ground, but the hips, spine, arms, shoulders and head all move in sync to maintain balance in the system. As mentioned in the book “The Animator's Survival Kit” By Richard Williams, a walk is a controlled fall. As we move forward into a walk we unknowingly allow gravity to assist us. Our body move or lean in the direction we are headed towards. The further the lean the faster we are moving. This is called the Balance/Tilt Line. As we allow our bodies to fall and gravity take over, we quickly place our foot in front of our bodies and stop us from hitting the floor. The faster we do this the faster we are moving. Though complex, if you break down each of these movements joint by joint, the mechanics of walking become clear. And mastering the walk is vital to any animator's arsenal of tools for creating believable and natural character animation. The main poses for the walk are:
Contact
Recoil
Passing
High – Point
These poses are the Key and Extreme Poses. These are the poses that are to be seen longer by the audience and will relate the emotion and personality of the characters. Some animators think that the recoil and high points are the most important poses because the head is at its highest and lowest positions. This is wrong. The contact pose is the fundamental building block of a walk cycle. If you do not start your cycle with this pose, then you are doomed. It’s as simple as that. Let’s break down a basic walk, step by step.
The feet and legs propel the body forward. To keep your character looking natural, you should always keep the joints bent slightly, even at full leg extension. Try not to straighten out any limb. The reason for this, is because as the animation plays it may result in a visible pop on those limbs. The walk usually starts with the feet at the extended position – where the feet are furthest apart. This is the point where the character’s weight shifts to the forward foot. As the weight of the body is transferred to the forward foot, the knee bends to absorb the shock. This is called the recoil position, and is the lowest point in the walk. This is halfway through the first step. As the character moves forward, the knee straightens out and lifts the body it’s highest point. This is called the passing position because this is where the free foot passes the supporting leg. As the character moves forward, the weight-bearing foot lifts off the ground at the heel, transmitting the force at the ball of the foot. This is where the body starts to fall forward. The free foot swings forward like a pendulum to catch the ground. The free leg makes contact. This is exactly half the cycle. The second half is an exact mirror of the first. If it differs, the character may appear to limp.
The body’s center of gravity is at the hips -- all balance starts there, as does the rest of the body’s motion. During a walk, it’s best to think of the hips’ motion as two separate, overlapping rotations. First, the hips rotate along the axis of the spine, forward and back with the legs. If the right leg is forward, the right hip is rotated forward as well. Second, at the passing position, the free leg pulls the hip out of center, forcing the hips to rock from side to side. These two motions are then transmitted through the spine to the shoulders, which mirror the hips to maintain balance.
Recoil
Passing
High – Point
These poses are the Key and Extreme Poses. These are the poses that are to be seen longer by the audience and will relate the emotion and personality of the characters. Some animators think that the recoil and high points are the most important poses because the head is at its highest and lowest positions. This is wrong. The contact pose is the fundamental building block of a walk cycle. If you do not start your cycle with this pose, then you are doomed. It’s as simple as that. Let’s break down a basic walk, step by step.
THE FEET AND LEGS
The feet and legs propel the body forward. To keep your character looking natural, you should always keep the joints bent slightly, even at full leg extension. Try not to straighten out any limb. The reason for this, is because as the animation plays it may result in a visible pop on those limbs. The walk usually starts with the feet at the extended position – where the feet are furthest apart. This is the point where the character’s weight shifts to the forward foot. As the weight of the body is transferred to the forward foot, the knee bends to absorb the shock. This is called the recoil position, and is the lowest point in the walk. This is halfway through the first step. As the character moves forward, the knee straightens out and lifts the body it’s highest point. This is called the passing position because this is where the free foot passes the supporting leg. As the character moves forward, the weight-bearing foot lifts off the ground at the heel, transmitting the force at the ball of the foot. This is where the body starts to fall forward. The free foot swings forward like a pendulum to catch the ground. The free leg makes contact. This is exactly half the cycle. The second half is an exact mirror of the first. If it differs, the character may appear to limp.
THE HIPS, SPINE & SHOULDERS
The body’s center of gravity is at the hips -- all balance starts there, as does the rest of the body’s motion. During a walk, it’s best to think of the hips’ motion as two separate, overlapping rotations. First, the hips rotate along the axis of the spine, forward and back with the legs. If the right leg is forward, the right hip is rotated forward as well. Second, at the passing position, the free leg pulls the hip out of center, forcing the hips to rock from side to side. These two motions are then transmitted through the spine to the shoulders, which mirror the hips to maintain balance.
When the feet are fully extended, the hips must rotate along the axis of the spine. To keep balance, the shoulders swing in the opposite direction. From the front, the spine is relatively straight, but from the top, you can see how the hips and shoulders twist in opposite directions to maintain balance. At the passing position, the front view shows the hip being pulled out of center by the weight of the free leg. This causes a counter-rotation in the shoulders. From the top, however, the hips and shoulders are nearly equal angles. At the extension of the second leg, the hips and shoulders again are flat when viewed from the front. From the top, however, you can see the rotation of the hips and shoulders has completed.
Unless the character is using it’s arms, they’ll generally hang loose at the sides. In this case, they generally act like pendulums, dragging a few frames behind the hips and shoulders. Even at full extension, try keeping the arms slightly bent at the elbows. This will keep them looking natural.
In a standard walk, the head generally tries to stay level, with the eyes focused on where the character is going. It will then bob around slightly to stay balanced. If a character is excited, this bobbing will be more pronounced. The head may also hang low for a sad character, or may look around if the scene requires it.
After completing the basic animation movements and poses as mentioned above, always double check your work . Here are some tips:
1. When the right foot is forward, the right arm is back, and vice versa. This is called “counterpose”. This is how nature keeps everything in balance when you move: one side of the body “opposes” the other. Good animation has these “opposing actions” all the time. If animation seems weak or unnatural to you, it is frequently because it lack opposing action.
2. Check the inbetweens (overlapping animation, follow-through, secondary action).
Once completed, this basic walk can be adjusted to create a walk with personality. This is achieved by going over the Key and Extreme poses and changing them to adhere to the character's personality. Or by redoing the entire tutorial and adding those personality traits in the walk at the moment of creation.
What I have provided for you is a start. I know that in this tutorial there was practically no images or video to assist you, aside from the first one. I will elaborate more on this tutorial with images and video, but try to follow as is first to get the basic idea. Also, this tutorial covers a walk for beginners. I will show you different ways or techniques of achieving the same goal. So in other words, this tutorial is not telling the exact way of animating a walk cycle. It is just informing you the fundamental principles and basic understanding of the walk cycle.
THE ARMS
Unless the character is using it’s arms, they’ll generally hang loose at the sides. In this case, they generally act like pendulums, dragging a few frames behind the hips and shoulders. Even at full extension, try keeping the arms slightly bent at the elbows. This will keep them looking natural.
THE HEAD
In a standard walk, the head generally tries to stay level, with the eyes focused on where the character is going. It will then bob around slightly to stay balanced. If a character is excited, this bobbing will be more pronounced. The head may also hang low for a sad character, or may look around if the scene requires it.
Check Up
After completing the basic animation movements and poses as mentioned above, always double check your work . Here are some tips:
1. When the right foot is forward, the right arm is back, and vice versa. This is called “counterpose”. This is how nature keeps everything in balance when you move: one side of the body “opposes” the other. Good animation has these “opposing actions” all the time. If animation seems weak or unnatural to you, it is frequently because it lack opposing action.
2. Check the inbetweens (overlapping animation, follow-through, secondary action).
Once completed, this basic walk can be adjusted to create a walk with personality. This is achieved by going over the Key and Extreme poses and changing them to adhere to the character's personality. Or by redoing the entire tutorial and adding those personality traits in the walk at the moment of creation.
What I have provided for you is a start. I know that in this tutorial there was practically no images or video to assist you, aside from the first one. I will elaborate more on this tutorial with images and video, but try to follow as is first to get the basic idea. Also, this tutorial covers a walk for beginners. I will show you different ways or techniques of achieving the same goal. So in other words, this tutorial is not telling the exact way of animating a walk cycle. It is just informing you the fundamental principles and basic understanding of the walk cycle.
This is just a basic over view of the walk. I'll go over more about the walk in following tutorials.
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