How to Animate Walking in Fireworks

Making characters walk is fairly easy to do with animation programs like Flash. Even simple walking can be a challenge for the limited animation capabilities of a program like Photoshop. Fortunately, with a little effort and planning you can use Photoshop to animate walking.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Create your character. Start with the head and body. Draw the elements in direct profile (or at least three-quarter profile) to simplify your animation. Convert the body and head to a symbol (F8) with the name "Body" and the type as "Graphic." It will group into a single layer.

2. Open the "Frames" palette and choose "Duplicate Frame" from the palette's options menu. In the duplicate dialogue enter "5" for the number of frames and choose "After Current Frame." Fireworks will add five new animation frames to your file with the body and head intact in each frame.

3. Go to "Frame 1." Draw the inside and outside legs (with hip) and inside and outside arms (with shoulder). Add a slight bend at knees and elbows will the walk look more natural. Hang the limbs straight from the shoulders and hips. Arrange the symbol layers with the inside arm and leg underneath the body symbol and the outside arm and leg above. Check the other frames; they will only contain the body.

4. Double click any of the limb symbols to open the animation window. Select all of the layers in the symbol and convert them to a single graphic symbol. Hold down "Option" and drag the new graphic symbol to create a copy. Rotate one copy 30 to 45 degrees from the shoulder or hip and the other -30 to 45 degrees (make sure the symbols' top centers—the hips or shoulders—are aligned when you finish).

5. Select the two copies of the graphic symbol and choose "Tween Instances" from the Modify menu Symbol submenu. Tween the symbols four steps with the "Distribute to Frames" options selected. One copy of your symbol will move to the last frame with intermediate positions filling each of the frames between. Click the playback button at the bottom of the document window to see the limb swing.

6. Select "Frame 6" and choose "Duplicate Frame" from the frame options menu again (this time choose "1" for the number of frames and add it "At the End"). Do the same with "Frames 5" through "Frame 2" in that order. You will now duplicate the frames in the reverse order to finish the step. Click the playback button to see the limb swing in one direction then back.

7. Close the symbol window. You should see the animation stages in each frame of the main document window. Animate the other three limbs with the outer arm swinging in the opposite direction of the inner arm and the outer leg opposite the inner leg. Click the playback button and you will see the character walk.