In animation

Animation

Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...

, a walk cycle is a series of frames

Film frame

In filmmaking, video production, animation, and related fields, a film frame or video frame is one of the many still images which compose the complete moving picture...

 or illustrations drawn in sequence that loop to create an animation of a walking

Walking

Walking is one of the main gaits of locomotion among legged animals, and is typically slower than running and other gaits. Walking is defined by an 'inverted pendulum' gait in which the body vaults over the stiff limb or limbs with each step...

 character. The walk cycle is looped over and over, thus having to avoid animating each step again.

Creating a walk cycle

Walk cycles can be broken up into 4 key frame

Key frame

A key frame in animation and filmmaking is a drawing that defines the starting and ending points of any smooth transition. They are called "frames" because their position in time is measured in frames on a strip of film...

, namely Forward Contact Point, Passing Pose1, Back Contact Point and Passing Pose 2. Frames that are drawn between these key poses (traditionally known as in-betweens/Inbetweening) are either hand-drawn or using computer software to interpolate them.

Besides the apparent move of the legs, many more details are necessary for a convincing walk cycle, like animation timing, movement of the arms, head and torsion of the whole body. (For example in ).

There exist many techniques to create walk cycles. Traditionally walk-cycles are hand drawn but over time with the introduction of new technologies for new mediums, walk cycles can be made in pixel art

Pixel art

Pixel art is a form of digital art, created through the use of raster graphics software, where images are edited on the pixel level. Graphics in most old computer and video games, graphing calculator games, and many mobile phone games are mostly pixel art.- History :The term pixel art was first...

, 2d computer graphics

2D computer graphics

2D computer graphics is the computer-based generation of digital images—mostly from two-dimensional models and by techniques specific to them...

, 3D computer graphics

3D computer graphics

3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...

, stop motion

Stop motion

Stop motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence...

 method, cut-out animation or using techniques like rotoscoping.

External links

• An article with example video and animation
• Walk Cycle Tutorial on how to create a walks using Adobe's Flash (download source file) with illustrations and video)
• Walk Cycle Tutorial on how to create a 2 frame walk.