How to Breakdown an Animation Walk Cycle

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Cable for Expert Village. In this clip I'm going to talk about the basic poses for your walk cycle. Now, after you study your reference footage, either yours or general footage of a character walking. You'll notice that you can break down any action, especially in animation into key poses. Now these key poses when translated onto paper, will become your key frames. Now for a walk cycle there are a few conventional poses. So a walk cycle is made up of two strides. These two strides can each be broken into the following key positions. Now our key positions are Contact, Recoil, Passing, and High Point. So in contact position, the heel of the foot has just touched the floor. The heel of the front foot that is has just touched the floor. And the back foot has started to come up on the ball of the foot. In recoil, both legs are slightly bent as the body is moving forward. Passing the back foot is being taken up off the ground and is sort of in line with the forward leg. In the high point position the knee that's coming forward is at its highest most point. From there, that stride just turns into the match to the first stride. So there again, you'll see contact, recoil, passing and high point. Again these are conventional poses for a basic walk cycle. If your character has a really distinctive walk, or maybe he shuffles his feet. Your key frame positions will be a little different. So after studying your reference footage. Your own or some preexisting reference footage for a walk cycle. Your key poses for both steps, one stride and then the second stride. One contact, recoil, passing, high point. And then on the second stride, contact, recoil, passing and then high point."