WALKING & RUNNING animation tutorials
by Igor Sinkovec |
|
|
 |
| Graphic
is one of the most challenging and enjoyable parts of game creation.
What is more fun than seeing your imaginary worlds and characters
shaping up in front of your eyes? While good graphic doesn't necessarily
mean good game, it certainly adds a big plus to playing experience.
However, pretty pictures don't help much, if they are not backed
up with solid animation… and that's the part we will cover in our
little tutorials. |
|
|
"Richard
Bazley, lead artist on Warner Bross's critically acclaimed The Iron
Giant, once said, that the biggest challenge for animator represents
ability to convince audience, that characters on screen do not move
only from point A to point B, but actually "live" their lives."
In order to create good animation of movement, we should give it
"personality". There's a whole range of walking styles, but
they all depend on character's anatomy (thin-fat), emotions (happy-sad),
etc... (you can see an example of this on picture 1). |
 |
1.
Walking
Walking animation cycle (especially the linear one) usually consists
of 2 key frames. In our case that means frames, where character
touches the ground with both feet. Between this two key frames we
can add two additional extremes (phases in which the character reaches
the highest point in animation)- see picture 2 . |
Now
we are ready to add inbetweens. Animation on picture 3 is
example of the most basic walk-cycle, constructed out of 10 frames
(the minimum for smooth cycle is 8 frames).
If you observe people as they walk, you can notice that not only
legs, but the whole body is responding. The most visibly: arms,
which are swinging in the opposite direction than legs. Take a look
at character's hands on picture 3. In attempt to make animation
more fluid, an important animation principle was used there. Secondary
action, as this rule is called, is movement caused by previous
action. That basically means, hands are moving as a response to
arm swinging and so it looks as they are following them all the
time. |
|
|
To
see walking animation in motion, CLICK on picture...
(You'll need Shockwave Plug-in)
|
2.
Running
The biggest difference between animation of walking and running
is, that in certain phases of run non of character's feet touches
the ground (picture 4). In a way, we are dealing with separated
"jumps". You should be careful there, as too high jumps can annul
the illusion of motion… in the other hand, such movement can stress
the comical note of the scene. |
|
|
To
see running animation in motion, CLICK on picture...
(You'll need Shockwave Plug-in)
|
| The
fact that running is faster motion than walking, doesn't necessarily
mean, we need to use less frames of animation. There can be up to
24 phases used for a cycle, depending on the effect you would like
to achieve. To create a feeling of faster run we can also change
inclination of our character (see example on picture 5). |
|
| As
you'll start with animation, keep in mind that every character has
it's way of moving. To reproduce the same walk animation over and
over again would be boring for you and even more for those that
would watch it. So this tutorials should be used only as a starting
point for further experimenting. |
|
