Acme Punched! A 2D Animation Blog: No. 193: Page One-Eleven

It was maybe on the second day, after we had been speaking about animating walks.  There was a rest room break, and I walked as much as Dick and stated, “In case you are animating a stroll cycle, do you have to animate the character in a single place on the web page, as to be used with a scrolling background?  Or do you have to stroll him throughout the web page?”

Most of what I knew about animation I had discovered from books, and from learning animated movies straight, so for years I had finished stroll cycles with the character holding his place on the web page and his toes slipping backward, as if I had been standing alongside a treadmill the place the character was strolling.

How walks are sometimes displayed in books on animation. From “Animation in Twelve Laborious Classes”, by Robert B. Heath.

One other instance, this time by Preston Blair in his well-known guide. From “Animation”, by Preston Blair, printed by Walter T. Foster.

That is how they had been often portrayed in animation books, typically with registration marks over every picture, in order that they may all be lined up, one completely superimposed over the subsequent. In some methods this was simpler to do, with the physique and head simply coming up and down.  The truth is, for a very long time I do not imagine it occurred to me to do it in any other case. However just lately I had realized that maybe you could possibly get a greater really feel for the ahead motion by letting the character really step ahead throughout the web page, and so I had posed this query to Richard Williams.

There was a pause of a number of seconds earlier than he answered decisively, “Stroll him throughout the web page.”

That is all I can let you know about his thought course of, or whether or not or not he had already meant to say one thing about this. However I can let you know that when the guide was printed, there it was, on web page 111: “…in doing these walks–take a couple of steps throughout the web page or screen–don’t attempt to work out a cycle strolling in place with the toes sliding again, and so forth.” 

Here’s a copy of the particular entry:

From web page 111 of “The Animator’s Survival Equipment”, by Richard Williams, printed by Faber and Faber, 2001.

However extra essential than whether or not I used to be an affect on Richard Williams is the truth that he’s proper: strolling the character throughout the web page is one of the best ways to get the motion proper. The opposite may typically work, however it may possibly additionally look as phony as operating in place does in comparison with really operating over a distance, and getting the texture of the mass and weight shifting ahead will show you how to obtain a convincing stroll (or run, or sneak or different gait.)

The stroll cycle, drawn unfold out throughout the web page.

And here is one thing of my very own I wish to add: it is crucial in doing any stroll cycle on this solution to create a replica of drawing 1 on the finish, so that you’ve got a drawing to hyperlink into.  Thus you probably have a 16 drawing stroll cycle, create additionally a drawing 17 which is a tracing of drawing 1 besides that will probably be positioned on the finish of the second step, the place the cycle repeats. This will probably be a working drawing and by no means to be photographed, however I believe one can find it indispensable.

With a replica of drawing 1 within the new place, you’ll have one thing to animate into.