Running Cycle Animation

Walk Cycle Animation

Walk Cucle

The walk cycle is one of the most technically difficult, because it requires so much attention to the movement of opposing limbs. There are many types of walk cycles, and you can vary the motion to match your character or his/her mood; you can do bouncy walks, shuffling walks, casual slouches. But the first and simplest is the standard upright walk, viewed from the side. You can cover the cycle of a full stride in 8 frames.

A walk cycle is a sequence of frames representing a walk movement (usually human). 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. For a human walk cycle, poses like passing point, high point, contact point and recoil point are identified as important frames that define the walk. Besides the apparent movement of the legs, other details are necessary for a convincing walk cycle, like arms, head and movement of the whole body.

Why 24 Frames?

The reason for this is that within animation it depends on your method of publication and the quality you want. If you want quality web animation then they would use 12 fps, whereas high web quality animation goes up to 15 fps which is usually for standard quality television animation.

The reason animation use 24 fps can either be high quality TV animation or low quality cinematic animation while high quality cinematic animation is generally 30 fps.

Storyboards

Storyboards are graphic organizers such as a series of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence, including website interactivity. A film storyboard is essentially a large comic of the film or some section of the film produced beforehand to help film directors, cinematographers andtelevision commercial advertising clients visualize the scenes and find potential problems before they occur. Often storyboards include arrows or instructions that indicate movement. A common misconception is that storyboards are not used in theater. They are frequently special tools that directors and playwrights use to understand the layout of the scene. The great Russian theatre practitionerConstantin Stanislavski developed storyboards in his detailed production plans for his Moscow Art Theatre performances (such as of Chekhov's The Seagull in 1898). The German director and dramatist Bertolt Brechtdeveloped detailed storyboards as part of his dramaturgical method of "fabels." In animation and special effects work, the storyboarding stage may be followed by simplified mock-ups called "animatics" to give a better idea of how the scene will look and feel with motion and timing. At its simplest, an animatic is a series of still images edited together and displayed in sequence. More commonly, a rough dialogue and/or rough sound track is added to the sequence of still images (usually taken from a storyboard) to test whether the sound and images are working effectively together.

storyboards for films are created in a multiple step process.-- They can be created by hand drawing or digitally on the computer.

If drawing by hand, the first step is to create or download a storyboard template. These look much like a blank comic strip, with space for comments and dialogue. Then sketch a "thumbnail" storyboard. Some directors sketch thumbnails directly in the script margins. These storyboards get their name because they are rough sketches not bigger than a thumbnail. For some motion pictures, thumbnail storyboards are sufficient.

However, some filmmakers rely heavily on the storyboarding process. If a director or producer wishes, more detailed and elaborate storyboard images are created. These can be created by professional storyboard artists by hand on paper or digitally by using 2D storyboarding programs. Some software applications even supply a stable of storyboard-specific images making it possible to quickly create shots which express the director's intent for the story. These boards tend to contain more detailed information than thumbnail storyboards and convey more of the mood for the scene. These are then presented to the project's cinematographer who achieves the director's vision.