animation Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animati ...

, a walk cycle is a series of frames or illustrations drawn in sequence that loop to create an animation of a

walking Walking (also known as ambulation) is one of the main gaits of terrestrial locomotion among legged animals. Walking is typically slower than running and other gaits. Walking is defined as an " inverted pendulum" gait in which the body vaults o ...

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

Creating a walk cycle

Walk cycles can be broken up into four

key frame In animation and filmmaking, a key frame (or keyframe) is a drawing or shot that defines the starting and ending points of a smooth transition. These are called ''frames'' because their position in time is measured in frames on a strip of f ...

s: the ''forward contact point'', the first ''passing pose'', the ''back contact point'', and the second ''passing pose''. Frames that are drawn between these key poses (traditionally known as in-betweens) are either hand-drawn or interpolated using computer software. 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.Walkcycle tutorial
from http://www.idleworm.com 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,

2D computer graphics 2D computer graphics is the computer-based generation of digital images—mostly from two-dimensional models (such as 2D geometric models, text, and digital images) and by techniques specific to them. It may refer to the branch of computer s ...

3D computer graphics 3D computer graphics, sometimes called Computer-generated imagery, CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional Computer-generated imagery, computer graphics, are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian coor ...

stop motion Stop-motion (also known as stop frame animation) is an animated filmmaking and special effects technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exh ...

, and cut-out animation, or using techniques like

rotoscoping Rotoscoping is an animation technique that animators use to trace over motion picture footage, frame by frame, to produce realistic action. Originally, live-action film images were projected onto a glass panel and traced onto paper. This pr ...

References

External links

The Walk and the Whip
archived) sample animation with video ( awn.com) Animation techniques {{animation-stub