A walk cycle is broken down into four main poses.
CONTACT – PASSING – CONTACT BACK – PASSING BACK
The initial CONTACT pose is the frame in which your cycle begins. This starts off the cycle with the character firm on the surface they are walking on and about to push off into their first step. This pose dictates the form of the walk and the characteristics you want the character to portray.
The second pose is a middle frame to blend the walk together and it’s there to show the characters limbs PASSING the body in order to take the step and land into the next pose. These frames can often be in awkward angles as it is just meant to show the movement of the characters from one pose to the next the give the illusion of walking.
The third pose is basically the opposite of the first pose as it’s another CONTACT pose however this time the limbs switch sides and the ones that were at the front the first time have now gone to the BACK and vice versa. This pose is like a middle point in your walk cycle as from this frame the character is now aiming to go back to it’s original contact pose in order to let the cycle run smoothly. Sometime, to show that this is the opposite to the initial pose, the back arm and leg for example on a human would be a darker colour to show the movement easier that the limbs are actually passing behind the body.
Finally the last important pose for the walk cycle shows the character moving from the second contact pose to show the limbs PASSING BACK across the body in order to get back to the initial contact pose. This again is just the opposite of the first passing pose just with the limbs flipped in order to retain that illusion that the animated character is walking throughout the cycle.
After you plan out these main poses for your character, you will have the basics for a walk cycle. Remember the character needs to return to the initial contact pose in order for the cycle to run properly but once you have that the character will repeatedly walk naturally.
Along with the main four poses in your walk cycle, you also have to add frames inbetween these main poses to give the character a more natural walk. Normal people dont only have four poses throughout their walking movement, there are hundreds of unique poses in between that make up a real life persons walk. To capture this in aniamtion and your characters walk cycle, it is necessary to put frames with slight movements to body parts to make the entire sequence more natural.
For my walk cycle I will be using a Spaceman walking on the moon. From general knowledge and looking at reference images and videos, the walk will me floatier and slower that a character that would be walking on earth to give the illusion that he is in fact on the moon.
Here are the reference images I got from video clips online with sketched skeletons to plan out my walk cycle.
And here is how the reference helped me create the main poses for my Spaceman animation.
