Quadruped Transitions by Maria Robertson

Free tiger rig from Truong

We're adding more animation tutorials to our Vimeo channel, including now a full series on how to use the Time Editor in Maya to animate locomotion transitions.

The tutorials were created by Escapee Maria Robertson, and build on Maria's existing tutorials on quadruped locomotion, such as walks, trots and runs.

Maria's transitions tutorial explains how different gaits can be combined using Maya's Time Editor.

Students who want to learn how to animate transitions should first learn to create a successful quadruped walk, trot and run cycle, before attempting to combine them into one piece of animation.

Maria Robertson

Quadruped Locomotion Transitions 
Escapee (and former animation undergraduate) Maria Robertson, currently working as an animator at Factory 42 in London, has recorded a series of videos for our students, showing how to animate the transition from a walk to a trot to a run.

Time Editor
The tutorial uses Maya's Time Editor, (formerly known, until the Maya 2018 edition, as the Trax Editor), a tool which allows animators to overlay motion cycles and produce an interpolated transition from one gait to the next.

Six Videos at Vimeo
There are six videos to watch at our Vimeo Channel. 
1. Introduction
1.5 Fixing the Trax Editor
2.  Using Animation Clips
3. Creating Transitions
4. Baking Animation Clips
5. Fixing the Transitions

Vimeo Channel
You can find Maria's videos, which are (like all our videos at our Vimeo channel) password-protected, here.

Horse gallop by Edward Muybridge

Quadruped Walks, Trots and Runs 
Earlier this year, Maria recorded a series of videos for our students, to show how to animate the three basic quadruped gaits: walk, trot and run.  In the series of 19 videos, hosted at Vimeo, Maria explains how to go about blocking out the three basic forms of animal locomotion.

Sabre Tooth by Truong
All the tutorials use the excellent free Boxy Sabre Tooth Tiger Rig from Truong CG, and available for free download from his official site. (though you can use any rig you like, of course)

Vimeo Channel - Walks, Trots and Runs
There are 7 short videos to watch, each about 10 minutes long:

1. Setting Your Scene Up
2. Laying the Groundwork
3. Posing the legs
4. Building
5. Animating secondary elements
6. Animating the tail
7. Polishing

To find the videos at our (password-protected) Vimeo channel, follow this link. Like all our videos, this one is password-protected, meaning it is only available for our current students and Escapees.

Quadruped Locomotion for Animators

Stuart Sumida

Don't forget to check out Animal Locomotion for Animators, a free eBook by paleontologist and animal locomotion expert Stuart Sumida, which you can download from his website here.  Stuart's book is an excellent resource on animal locomotion.

Stuart Sumida
Stuart Sumida is a paleontologist who has acted as advisor to many Hollywood films including Spirit - Stallion of the Cimarron. He is a regular guest at Escape Studios, lecturing on animal biology, locomotion and mechanics.

To find the free download, follow this link. And to read more about Stuart Sumida's work, see this blog post.

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To find out more about our new BA/MArt, now recruiting for September 2019, follow this link.   To apply, visit the official page here.