LUKE HOLLAND ANIMATION: March 2010

The Walk Cycle

In animation, a walk cycle is a sequence of frames representing a (usually human) walk movement. Walk cycles are important, because when a walking person appears in an animation, the walk cycle simply can be looped over and over, without having to animate each step again.

The walk cycle is one of the most important learning concepts in animation and also one of the most technically difficult, because it requires so much attention to the movement of opposing limbs.

For a human walk cycle, poses like passing point, high point, contact point and recoil point can be identified as important frames defining the walk.

Besides the apparent move of the legs, many more details are necessary for a convincing walk cycle, like arms, head and torsion of the whole body. Also the bottoms of the feet must squash slightly, meaning stretch out, when the pressure of the body is placed on them.

Storyboards

The animation storyboard is the first sight of what a cartoon or piece of animation is going to look like. The animation storyboard looks like a series of strip comics, with individual drawings of storylines, scenes, characters and their emotions and other major parts of the movie. The drawings will reflect the early ideas of what characters will look like, what the backgrounds and scenery will be some idea of dialogue, emotions ,and a general feel of the animation process.

Storyboards are very important, as they form the basis of the work that is carried out on the movie, describing most of the major features as well as the plot and its development.

Animation storyboards are also the coordinating vehicle of the film, taking the place of the script, and allowing different teams of people to work on different aspects and scenes in the movie. A studio like Pixar will have thousands of storyboard frames like the one shown here.

The finished movie may not always conform to all aspects of the storyboard, but they will document many of the early developments in the movie. They are often the first step of the animation process, as they show the first views - albeit static - of the animation process.

Storyboards

When you're working on an animation, even a short one, it's almost impossible to just dive in and get started animating right away.

Using a storyboard will help you organize your animation, and match you mental visualizations of scenes with the written script; it can also give you a visual format to communicate your ideas to others.

A storyboard can be an elaborate, professional series of framed color artwork depicting action and motion in a scene, complete with written descriptions of dialogue, sound effects, and transitions into the next scene (these are most often used by studios for major projects)--or a single page of numbered thumbnail sketches, or even something as plain and simple as a quick series of motion-study sketches (as depicted here) to capture the movement of a body that you want to animate.

If you use a storyboard you'll find that you'll be able to plan your animations more cohesively with clear marker points to show progress, and you'll save yourself a lot of time and trouble when struggling to make the entire thing come together from beginning.