masthead
home course info courrse materials student gallery extras LS home
clear  
Notes & Lessons
  Grading Rubric
  OSX Basics
  Basic Computer Terms
  Connecting to the Staff Server
  Filenames, Assignments and Projects
  A1: Hexnut & Flower Drawing
  A2:
  1. Scene with Layers
  2. Basic Motion Tween
  A3: Motion Tween on a Path (Intro to Symbols)
  A4: Nested Animations
  A5: Mask Layers
  A6: Intro to Buttons
  A7: Animated, Animated Buttons
  Project 1:
  1. Expanded Square
  2. Monochrome Scene
  3. Intro Scene
  4. Navigation Scene
  Project 2: Character Animation
  1. Introduction
  2. Character Design & Symbol Creation
  3. Terms & Definitions
  4. Overview of the Walk Cycle
  5. Getting Started
  6. Frame Nine
  7. Body Bounce
  8. Animating the legs and feet
  9. Refining the Arm Animation
  Motion Tween Quiz Review
  Handout_2
  Preparing a Web Portfolio: pt. 1
  Preparing a Web Portfolio: pt. 2
  Web Portfolio: pt 3
   
WALKING ANIMATION
Pt. 7: Animating the Bounce of the Body & Head

Flash: Intertactive Web Animation
Teachers: Ken Kimura
email: ken_kimura at lsrhs dot net
telephone: (978)443-9961 Ken Kimura: XT2221

We’re going to focus on the up and down motion of the body and head. For this walk cycle, the character will be walking in place. Much like what a person looks like when they walk on a tread mill. This means that the body will not move forward at all. It will only move up and down.
  1. For now, hide all the leg, foot and arm layers (click on the eyeball icon next to the layer name).
  2. Create a motion tween between the first and last frames.
  3. 17 frames will cover 2 full walking steps. Were going to create the up and down movement of the head and body for the first step only (frames 1-9), then we’re going to copy these frames into frames 9-17.
  4. The Passing Position is on frame 5. Add a keyframe and raise the position of the body and head slightly above your guideline. The most accurate way to do this is to select the body symbol with the selection tool, then use the arrow keys on your keyboard to nudge it's position.
  5. Frame 3 is the Down Position. Add a keyframe and lower the position of the body and head so that it is slightly below your guideline.
  6. Frame 7 is the Up Position. Add a keyframe and raise the position of the body and head so that they are even higher above the guideline than they are in frame 5.
    bounce diagram
  7. Select frames 1 through 9 of the body layer. Copy these frames (Control click on the selected frames > Copy Frames).
  8. Now select frames 9 through 17 and paste frames (Control click on the selected frames > Paste Frames).
Testing Your Walk Cycle
At this point you may be TEMPTED to text your movie. To do this you need to go back to the main scene (Scene 1), delete all the stuff and most of the layers except ofr one layer. Delete everything from that one layer and drag from your library an instance of the "MC_walk_cycle" symbol onto the stage. Now you can text your movie - but be warned - your animation is not even close to being finished.
Also see diagram: Position Guide for Legs
Also see: project example: walk cycles
Edited 1-9-08