So I’ve recently begun drawing some walking animations for my game, but somehow I could never seem to get it movements right without the character looking like a some cripple.

It was not until I read this brilliant animation tutorial that I began to understand how the correctly implement a smooth walking animation. It goes throughly the dynamics of all the moveable parts (arms and feet) to faithfully emulate a walking human being. Below is an excellent illustration by the author:

Supposedly, the industry standard for creating a believable walk cycle is eight frames; using 8 frames is just the right amount of frames needed to reproduce most of the dynamics that goes on within a walking animation.

So anyhow, after reading the article, I endeavored to put his theory into practice. I began by animating Billy, who plays the role of the old hippy from the 60s summer-of-love era. Notice how all the frames in my animation correspond to each of the frames above.

And putting it all together becomes:

There are many things to notice when creating a walk cycle. The problem that many beginners (like me) initially face is not taking notice of the bouncing effect that occurs naturally when you walk. Note that head and torso moves vertically depending on how far the character’s legs are extending. When the character steps outwards and extends his legs to commit his weight forward (frames 2 & 6), his body and head dips down. And then when the character retracts and straightens his legs (frames 4 & 8), his torso and head moves up. The second thing to take notice is the positioning of the arms and feet. When the left foot steps outwards, it is complimented by the right hand going forward, and vise versa.

Anyhow, give it a try. There are many resources online that can help you produce a bitchin’ cycle. And if you really want to get into it, I’ve heard many good things about the book Animator’s Survival Kit.