How a Bear Walks - Quadruped Locomotion

Bear Walk by Amanda Costa

How does a bear walk? All animators need to learn how to animate a quadruped walk cycle.  All quadrupeds walk in more or less the same way, allowing for anatomy (herbivores have less flexible spines than carnivores). 

To the left is a bear walk cycle animated by Amanda Costa, showing the live action reference used to create the animation.  

Horse Trot Tutorial at Our Vimeo Channel

We've added a new tutorial to our expanding Vimeo Channel showing how to animate a horse trotting. A trot is an intermediate gait between a walk and a run; all quadrupeds trot in the same way (allowing for anatomy).  The Escape Studios Vimeo Tutorial Channel is our main hub for our animation and VFX video tutorials, making it easy for our students to find tutorials to support their classroom studies.

Animate a Horse Rearing Using Live Action

Horse Rearing Tutorial with Live Action Reference

We've uploaded a new animation tutorial to our expanding Vimeo tutorial channel - how to animate a horse rearing up - using live action reference.

The purpose of the tutorial is to learn how to import live action reference footage into Maya and use it to create believable animal animation.

You can find the tutorial, which is free for all our students, at our Vimeo Channel.

Quadruped Leopard Walk Locomotion Tutorial

Leopard Walk by Melissa Coarezza

We've uploaded a new video tutorial at Vimeo on animating quadrupeds, a "Leopard Walk Tutorial" using the free Leopard Rig by Truong CG, which is available for download at Gumroad. 

The Leopard Rig is built along the same lines as Truong's other quadruped rigs.  The locomotion tutorial is password-protected - but available to all our current students and recent Escapees.

Quadruped Locomotion by Maria Robertson

Quadruped Locomotion by Maria Robertson

We're adding more animation tutorials to our Vimeo channel, including now a full series of videos on quadruped locomotion.

The trick with tackling quadruped locomotion is break down an apparently complex motion into a manageable, simple workflow.

After all, in animation you get nothing for free. You start off with a digital puppet, and then have to figure out the rest yourself.