How to Make a Walk Cycle in After Effects
Adobe After Effects is a graphical processing tool that allows users to create visually impressive videos and animations. Users can create loop effects to repeat movements, giving characters continues motion and animation. This is helpful if you want a character or graphic to continuously perform an action, such as walking or running. To create a walk cycle in After Effects you will need to create key frames and place them on a loop.
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Instructions
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Load After Effects and open the "loop_project" option. Open the "intro" tab and you will see keyframe layers as well as loop expressions.
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Define, with the sliding bars, where your loop cycle will begin and end. It is helpful to make the loop cycle end and begin at the same point to ensure the model transitions properly.
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Import your model into After Effects. Dissect the model into parts, torso, arms, upper and lower legs, and feet all need to be in distinct sections and layers.
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Apply parent relations to each body part to its anchor position. So the feet should be parented to the lower legs, lower legs to the upper legs, upper legs to the torso and arms to the torso. Bring of the body parts back into their proper positions.
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Move the body parts the maximum distance from their resting position and make this the first key frame.
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Place the first keyframe at the starting point of your cycle.
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Move to the middle most keyframe and reverse the values from the first keyframe, so that the model is exactly opposite.
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Fill in the middle keyframes, moving each body part in transitional stages, to make the walking movement flow smoother.
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Apply the "loop_out(“cycle”,0)" expression to each keyframe body part. Save your work and then play back the loop cycle. The model should continuously cycle through the start and end of the loop, making it walk.
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