Character Walks with the Bio Motion Walker

Bio Motion Walker

This week our first year undergraduate students are studying how to animate a walk cycle, creating a successful biped walk and then giving it character and personality.

One very useful resource is the Bio Motion Walker from the Bio Motion Lab, located at York University in Toronto, Ontario.

The Bio Motion Walker allows animators to move a range of sliders showing how to make a walk cycle feel masculine or feminine, heavy or light, anxious or calm, happy or sad.  

Animators study live action, and then incorporate - and exaggerate - real life in their work . The Bio Motion Walker is a useful tool for analysing how people walk and move in different ways.  

You can find the Bio Motion Walker here.

Walk Cycle Tutorials

"Zombie" walk by Michael Davies

We have many walk cycle tutorials available for our students at Escape Studios.  These form part of our series of online animation tutorials, to support our students' classroom learning.  

Marc Stevenson Walk Tutorial

Marc Stevenson uses the Stewart rig, which is free for download. The Walk cycle with "Stewart" by Marc Stevenson can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIDuaRsUZUk&list=PLxIzoEJ0jom0fM2IISbqOsj2UNwg7WJbg

Ways to Animate a Walk - which is best?
One of the most common questions student animators ask when they tackle their first walk cycle is this: is it better to animate the walk cycle "on the spot", as if on an imaginary treadmill, or is it better to animate the character physically walking across the screen, taking two steps? 

Choose Your Method

Walk Cycle from "The Animator's Survival Kit"

Both methods of creating a cycle are effective approaches to the problem of character walks, and at Escape Studios we teach both methods. Both, however, have their advantages and disadvantages.

Watch this five minute video here to understand the difference between the two approaches, and decide for yourself which one suits you best.

Locomotion Resources at Escape Studios

To see more about how to animate walks at Escape Studios, read the blog posts below:

• "Stewart" Walk Tutorial with Marc Stevenson
• Animating the ZigZag Walk with Alex Williams
• Learn to animate a basic walk with "Monty" by Alex Williams

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  • Animating the "ZigZag Walk" with Alex Williams

  Basic Walk Cycle Tutorial using "Ultimate Walker" with Amanda Costa
• Character Walk Tutorial with "Monty", with Alex Williams
• 100 Ways to Walk with Kevin Parry
• How to stop feet sliding in a walk cycle, with Alex Williams
• Character walks with Houman Soroushnia
• Basic Run Cycle Tutorial with Marc Stevenson
• "Monty" walk tutorial with Marc Stevenson

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To apply for our BA/MArt follow this link. To apply for one of our intensive 3 month animation short courses, click here.