Character Animation: Walk Cycles in Adobe After Effects CC

Master how to animate the most common Walk Cycles in Adobe After Effects.

Welcome to Walk Cycles in Adobe After Effects.

From the Author of the Bestselling and Highest Rated Complete After Effects CC Course.

When you’re committed to upgrading your skills in Motion Graphics you’ll need to learn and master the concepts and techniques to create various walk cycles.

You will learn how to create walk cycles and I will give you lots of tips on how to animate the different elements and the secondary animations.

We will cover several walk cycles from the classic or basic walk to double bounce and run cycles. We will also go through the concept behind each walk cycle. It will give you a full understanding and working knowledge to achieve any other walk you can think about.

This course does not use any complicated plugin such as Duik.

The walk cycles that we will cover:

1. Fun Walk Cycle animation
This is a special animation where we'll animate bezier paths to create the walk cycle. I find it important to start with path animation because there are after effects default.

2. Basic/Classic Walk Cycle

With a simple character design, we will cover all the rules and working methods that we will use for any other work cycle later.

3. Run Cycle

We will cover how to create the run cycle animation. The run cycle is short and energetic. It's a lots of fun to create this cycle. It's a fast wide walk cycle of just half second.

4. The Sad Walk Cycle

It's a simple walk cycle with a slow animation for two seconds and small steps. We will start by animating meeting the shoes and other elements will follow the rhythm. For this walk and especially this character, we are going to animate the hands using certain effects.

5. Sleepy/Sad Walk Cycle animation
I'll be suggesting this as an assignment: A sad sleepy walk for a banana character. You might try your hand to recreate the animation and maybe give it more personality.

6. Double Bounce Walk Cycle animation
…The double bounce is a special walk cycle where the character Bounces twice for every step. It's actually not difficult to achieve this walk cycle if you set and follow the markers at the right time.

7. Sneak walk Cycle animation
This is our three second long sneak walk animation. It's actually pretty interesting and not so hard to achieve. There are couple of animation principles you need to take care of.

8. Proud/Pompous Cycle animation
He his proud with chest and head up and forward. Walking in a proud, pompous way.

I provided you with projects files that you can download and start animating. So, you will have the opportunity to practice because we will be creating practical and easy to replicate walk cycles. The aim is for you to understand the concept behind a certain walk and create the walk.

By the end of the course, you will be equipped to create some more amazing walks.

Join me now and let’s get some character walking and running.

Cheers

Louay