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.
- For now, hide all the leg, foot and arm layers (click on the eyeball icon
next to the layer name).
- Create a motion tween between the first and last frames.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.

- Select frames 1 through 9 of the body layer. Copy these frames (Control click on the selected frames > Copy Frames).
- 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 |