Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time. A simple 3D Walk study
Flash Dev
This article will be the first of many on the subject of 3D walks. These animated walks can be linked to 3D character models in 3D Studio Max, which in turn can be exported for use in Flash games or websites. This series of articles however will concentrate purely on creating different types of realistic walk cycles and not about getting them into flash, that will come later.

It has been said that mastering how to animate walks should be the first thing any animator learns because it is the hardest thing to do well. This is because as humans we see people walking around all the time and that means we can notice if something is not just not right.

Here is my basic walk cycle. Unfortunately the video player rewinds at a slightly slower speed than the actual frame rate of the video so when the play-head jumps back to the beginning we get what appears to be a "limp" in the characters walk. This is an unavoidable jitter and until I can find a way to present a seamles loop, we will just have to ignore this little glitch.



What I have done here is animate a stock standard biped in 3D Studio Max. I have done this because I am concentrating only on the animation and do not want to be bothered with models or textures. This motion can be saved and applied to a model at a later stage as needed, and of course re-used for different models which makes this approach perfect. I am not teaching how to use 3D Studio Max here so if you need to learn how to animate in 3DsMax, there are plenty of tutorials online that will get you up to speed. Instead we will be looking at the mechanics of a walk.

Fluid Movement


In Richard Williams' book The Animator's Survival Kit, he describes a walk as the act of repeatedly falling forward and catching yourself with your free leg before you fall flat on your face. This description was very helpful for me to be able to visualise the massive role gravity plays in any walk... Falling and catching.

The first thing you need to know about walking is that it does not just invlove moving the legs, it involves moving parts of the entire body. Some movements are more subtle than others but all combine to make a walk more believable and realistic. By only moving the legs back and forth you will end up with something that looks very robotic, so here is what we do.

Legs


For a realistic walk, the devil is in the details. In the contact position (where both feet are on the ground) kick the front foot out when the heel touches the floor and bend the toes on the back foot parallel to the floor with the heel facing up. The feet aren't rigidly attached to the legs so swing the feet up or down based on their change of direction of movement. Do the same for the hands. Also only lift the feet enough off the ground so that they just clear the floor. We do this when we walk to conserve energy and this is often the reason we stub our toes or trip over things.

Arms & Shoulders


Always remember that the arm that swings forward is always opposite to the leg that is forward... get up and try it! Also notice that the arms speed up and straighten out as they swing past the body and slow down and bend a little as they reach their outermost positions, just like a swinging pendulum. The hands lag a bit behind the arms which also helps convey looseness. The shoulders also tilt slightly down towards the leg that is holding the body's weight.

Head & Spine


If walking is the act of falling and recovering, then you will see the force of gravity acting most on the spine and head. Your head will bob slightly and your back will bend when your forward foot makes contact with the ground. More bob and bend makes the character look tired and cumbersome and less makes the character appear rigid and disciplined. In a military style march you will have very little spine and head action but significantly more for a laboured weighty walk. A little side to side bending motion on the spine also helps make things more fluid.

Hips


Now in my opinion the hips made the most difference in creating a realistic walk. By rotating the hips back and forth we achieve a very fluid movement at the core of the walk. This is nicely demonstrated in my skeletal biped above but will be more subtle once the motion is applied to an actual character model. Anyway, don't forget the hips because they will lift your walk just that extra notch. A female walk will have a very heavy hip swing when compared to a male walk.

Tips & Tricks


If you want to play around with biped walks, you can download a trial version of 3D Studio Max here. Work some quick tutorials to just familiarise yourself with the max timeline and keyframes. If you experiment with more advanced walkcycles, set up a webcam and film yourself or a buddy attempting that walk. This will save you a lot of experimenting and will also help as a refference when you start animation.

Remember to look at the legs, arms & shoulders, head & spine and also the hips individually when animating. Animate each one separately from beginning to end. Legs first, then arms etc. Do not try move everything at once on every frame as this will complicate things exponentially (I found this out the hard way).

Ok, it is not perfect but I hope someone out there found this useful. In the next article in this section we will look at something a bit more complex and nuanced.
 

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