Walking test done in AS

[Phatthumb]

Hey I was wondering if this an effective walk or does it need some work?
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2bf_1194398004

[slowtiger]

It's up to you how much work you want to spend on details. The walk can be used like this, if your film is a fast-paced story with lots of cuts. My personal preference would be to improve it a bit: right now the feet are sliding on the ground, and while the overall gestures are broad and exaggerated, it lacks a bit of dynamic.

[DMacstudios]

There is a pretty exagerated head bob in his walk. This might be what you were aiming for but I found it to be to much. There was also a noticable speed change between the beginning of his walk and the end. All things being equal, it still works. Good job.

[Phatthumb]

Thanks for the replies. I put it on here because I knew I would get an honest and construtive respose. Thank you. I'll work on it, LOL.

[Phatthumb]

Hey guys if I post a new walk in the next couple of days will you look for and comment on it? Thanks.

[Phatthumb]

Here's another version of the walk. I uploaded it up on YouTube this time. For some reason its all pixelated. I'm pissed about that. Anyway, what about my walk?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4B2f90vzmY

[slowtiger]

From what I see (youtube doesn't allow frame-by-frame play) I'm under the impression that you've got one or two extra frames when his foot contacts the ground. This stops the whole fluid motion. You can duplicate your file and experiement with erasing one frame or two frames at those points.

[Phatthumb]

Hey thanks. I read that you should do your walks on 16's (16 frames). What do you think? I can do it good on paper, but when it comes to vectors I get all messed up. HEEEEELLLLLLLLP! lol.

[slowtiger]

I read that you should do your walks on 16's (16 frames)

That's much too generalized to be correct.

Walks can be done in any speed. You have to differenciate between the length of the walk and the fps rate of your film. Since traditional animation is done for film with a fixed 24 fps, all references given in books are only vaid for this general playback speed.

So start with setting your file's playback rate to 24 fps (project settings). Now all those timing information from books can be applied correctly. You can do one step in 12 frames or more. If you do it in less than 8 frames, it will be a run. A complete cycle will have 24 or 16 frames then.

I found that sometimes a playback rate of 24 fps gives a too smooth result. In this case I set playback rate to 12 fps, which means that I animate "on two's" now in the classic context (1 drawing for 2 frames of film at 24 fps).

Sometimes I don't have decided about the overall walk speed of my character. I create a file with the character only, animate the walk at a convenient playback rate, then set the playback rate to what I need for the whole scene and adjust the walk cycle's length with "Rescale Keyframes".

A quick search for "walk cycle" in google gives these results:
http://www.idleworm.com/how/anm/02w/walk1.shtml
http://www.anticz.com/Walks.htm
http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/aim/a_not ... oject.html
http://www.mcmxi.com/~jpr/teaching/GPH2 ... /walk.html
http://engr.smu.edu/~alcantara/walkcycle/walkcycle.html

And just for fun: 14 pages to show how to create a walk cycle in Flash:
http://www.webmonkey.com/02/05/index4a.html

The same task, this time done in AfterEffects:
http://library.creativecow.net/articles ... ooping.php

[Phatthumb]

Thank you very much for all the info!