Most effective layer to animate horse walking/running?

[Hartknocks]

So i've looked at tutorials for it, but is it possible to do it with bone rigs? I started trying with that but it didn't turn out so well. Or should I make the frames of the horses legs and use switch layers, or frame by frame?

[Víctor Paredes]

I don't have a tutorial at hand, but you should check the Animator's survival kit by Richard Williams.
Also, here's an interesting old thread about horses:
viewtopic.php?t=11208

[funksmaname]

you can do it with bones, probably easiest... get a good reference of the key positions like

then create a bone rig and put them in the positions of the image (move the image for each reference)

[Hartknocks]

I don't have a tutorial at hand, but you should check the Animator's survival kit by Richard Williams.
Also, here's an interesting old thread about horses:
viewtopic.php?t=11208

Cool, thanks for this. I planned on looking all this stuff up, but before I started I just wanted to figure out which way to start doing it, seems like a bone rig is the way to go.

[Hartknocks]

you can do it with bones, probably easiest... get a good reference of the key positions like
then create a bone rig and put them in the positions of the image (move the image for each reference)

Sometimes I forget I can bring an image in AS and then just use the frames as reference. Apparently I like to try to reinvent the wheel!
Thanks!

[Víctor Paredes]

Instead of tracing the image frame by frame, I recommend you to check which are the important keys of the movement and trace them at first (or use them as reference), because, if you trace the movement frame by frame, you probably will get a very shaky unnatural movement.
Once you identify and use the main keys as reference, go for the in-betweens, but always prioritizing how well your animation is working, rather than how similar the individual poses are compared to the reference. Probably there will be poses you will discard, in order to get a smooth movement.
Timing is very important and that can't be read on image references. Even if you are using a video as reference, your animation timing can be different, because your character is different and lives in a different world.

[Hartknocks]

Instead of tracing the image frame by frame, I recommend you to check which are the important keys of the movement and trace them at first (or use them as reference), because, if you trace the movement frame by frame, you probably will get a very shaky unnatural movement.
Once you identify and use the main keys as reference, go for the in-betweens, but always prioritizing how well your animation is working, rather than how similar the individual poses are compared to the reference. Probably there will be poses you will discard, in order to get a smooth movement.
Timing is very important and that can't be read on image references. Even if you are using a video as reference, your animation timing can be different, because your character is different and lives in a different world.

I'll keep that in mind, thanks!