Animate a Military Walk with Monty

Every animator needs to learn how to animate a character walk.  

In this latest tutorial, we show how to take a basic walk cycle using the "Monty" rig (free for download from highend3d.com) and make Monty march like a goose-stepping soldier on a parade ground.  

The video tutorial is recorded in Autodesk Maya, and is aimed at animation beginners. 

Animate a Slow Sad Walk with Monty

Animate a sad walk with Monty

Every animator needs to learn how to animate a character walk; fortunately we have 100s of animation tutorials for our students at our Vimeo Channel

In the tutorial below, we show how to take a basic walk cycle using the marvellous "Monty" rig - and then make Monty sad and depressed - with just a few clicks.  The video tutorial is recorded in Autodesk Maya, and is aimed at animation beginners. 

Animate a Sneaky Walk with Monty

Sneaky Monty

In the video tutorial below we show how to animate a sneaky walk with "Monty" the green pea.

To complete the tutorial, first start with a Basic Walk with "Monty" - which you can learn how to do here.

Then, as with our other character walks tutorials, adapt the basic walk to give it character and personality - in this case a "sneak". 

Double Bounce Walk Tutorial with Monty

Double Bounce Walk with Monty

Every animator needs to know how to animate a character walk.  In this tutorial, we show how to take a basic walk cycle using the marvellous "Monty" rig (free for download from Creative Crash) and give Monty a sunny, upbeat personality with just a few clicks.  

The video tutorial is recorded in Autodesk Maya, and is aimed at animation beginners.

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.

"Stewart" Walk Tutorial with Marc Stevenson

We've uploaded a new Walk Cycle Tutorial, part of our series of online animation tutorials, to support our students' online learning.

The tutorial, recorded by Escape Studios tutor Marc Stevenson, uses the Stewart rig, which is free for download.

Animating Character Walks - The Zig Zag Walk

Above is a series of shots I animated during my two years working as an animator on "The Thief and The Cobbler", the not-quite-finished feature film that is sometimes described as "the greatest animated film never made". The ZigZag walk was my one of first assignments as a junior animator, and it remains one of the sequences I am most proud of.  It was very complex to figure out; and contained many different elements all moving together in sequence - but on different timings.