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View Full Version : Animate a RUN; need your help here please

Katzenminze
06-04-2007, 08:12 PM
Hi you crazy animation gurus :)

At the moment I'm still going to college but I'm planing to apply to an irish animation school next year so I'm preparing my carreer by (trying to) learning how to draw and animate.
I'm following Richard WIlliams instructions from his book "The Animator's Survival Kit" which I can only recommend to EVERYBODY, but I ran into some issues.
I created a simple walk for a character which works with no problems
(I'm doing traditional 2d animation by the way) BUT I was now trying to get a RUN working...
The main difference between a run and a walk is that at one point BOTH legs are off the ground. So far so good but here is my question:
Beacause of the two legs being in the air tehre will be a little jump. How do I determine, ho FAR I have to move the character during this jump? In a walk it's easy to create the "transition" because I can relate each foot to the opposite one from the last contact position but during the run I kinda lost my reference point^^

any suggestions? Is there a secret trick mr williams wants to hide from me? Or do i just have to take my artistic license and guess where my character will place his feet?

Thx in advantage and happy animating everyone!

Fred
GoldenCamel
06-04-2007, 08:24 PM
one good suggestion would be to video yourself running and then watch it frame by frame to see what is happening. if thats not possible just guess some lengnth, move the character forward and then play it back to see how it runs, then adjust to fine tune.

there's no secret in there. just trial and error
Slugger
06-04-2007, 10:22 PM
google picture search with keywords: muybridge run
and you'll find quite a bit of useful pictures/sequences and perhaps some not so useful.
I do not know how it's done in 2D, guess it's like GoldenCamel says, which is true for 3D aswell many times

cheers,

k.
sdyer23
06-06-2007, 05:32 PM
Katzenminze,

I'll agree with the posters above me in saying that yes, trial and error is the only way to see if you are doing things righ tand there isn't a "Magic bullet" of run cycles. I'll also agree that observing the movement by videotaping yourself is also a fine way ot seein ght motion ... in motion.

But I'll add this. When you walk, the torso moves up and down right? I mean it doesn't move to much but it does add a bit of a bounce to our walk. In a run , this up and dowm moion is much exaggerated.

I think from other run cycles that I've seen, this part of it is most often missed. You need to make sure that your torso is moving up and down much more dramatically than that of a walk, If you do that, then the transistion to the "Off-ground" pose will look more fliud and natural. You'll see this if you watch the motion for yourself, but that is the one thing I can suggest to you for a more fluid run cycle.

I hope this helps to shed a little light on your situation. Good luck to you, and if you want to, post up your run and perhaps we can Comment on it.

-Tux
Slugger
06-06-2007, 10:24 PM
I'd like to add, this is how i would start(when doing it in a 3D app, I havent invented the method or anything, learned it from a real pro), start out with pelvis movement only, forward, up down motion, tilt body forwards, plus rotation for hips at extremes(imagine left leg front/contact, right leg back/lifted(this leg should be airborne when left is at contact otherwise you'd get a fast walk I think)), this is to get the phase/rythm right, cover legs/torso/with a paper etc, once the rythm is established and ok, one moves on to leg/arms/spine & set "extreme" poses,
I dont know if it's transferable to 2D, but I'd guess it would be

cheers,

k.
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