7 Common Mistakes in Walk Cycle Animation - Tips to Detect and Fix them

Here’s your quick guide on detecting and fixing mistakes when creating walk cycle animation. All the examples in this video are based on the most common mistakes that the students of our Motion Beast course made. In this course, we teach animation in Adobe After Effects and Adobe Animate to beginners and intermediate-level students. It has a bunch of After Effects tutorials as well as significant block dedicated to character animation.
Let us know in the comments if you want more walk cycle tutorials or videos dedicated to character animation. We would be more than happy to record them :D
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Timelines
0:00 Motion Design School Logo
0:04 Introduction
0:25 1. Phases from Hell
1:00 2. Simultaneous movement
1:40 3. Don't move walk cycles!
2:43 4. Indistinguishable Up and Down
3:37 5. Asymmetrical poses
4:23 6. Uneven movement of supporting leg
5:25 7. Wooden feet syndrome
6:02 Things to check
7:06 Conclusion
7:47 Outro

[@andyboatwright9407]

I've now learnt how to move my legs and arms in real life thanks.

[@osgarlo]

0:00 Motion Design School Logo 0:04 Introduction 0:25 1. Phases from Hell 1:00 2. Simultaneous movement 1:40 3. Don't move walk cycles! 2:43 4. Indistinguishable Up and Down 3:37 5. Asymmetrical poses 4:23 6. Uneven movement of supporting leg 5:25 7. Wooden feet syndrome 6:02 Things to check 6:14 I. Contact Pose 6:20 II. Passing Pose 6:34 III. Up and Down poses 6:41 IV. The movement of a body 6:49 V. Don't forget details 6:56 VI. Motion Paths 7:02 VII. Volume 7:06 Conclusion 7:47 Outro

[@flubble2473]

Thank you ! I love how much I'm learning when all I need to do is make a pixel art character take 2 steps forward in 5 frames- it's like writing a sentence and learning 30 words on the side as a bonus !

[@THUNGUNS]

Best tutorial/guide for animating walk cycles. Doesn't focus too much on the technicalities and lets us learn the principles.

[@Hjkhjfhhhgch]

Another bit of advice that helped me loads was to step away from the animation for a bit. I try and switch up the shots i'm working on to give my brain a break so I can see mistakes I made when I return to it.

[@DavidJonRandom]

The sound is really quiet in this video. I had to set my volume in Windows from 5% to 100% to make it sound as loud as other videos.

[@motiondesignschool]

Thanks, we will pay attention to this thing in future videos

[@kennetherhabor5543]

Thanks for this. Learnt a few new things about walk cycle animation that I hadn't paid attention to before or I just overlooked. Please keep the character animation tutorials coming.

[@maxmarakhovskyi4624]

That's brilliant!

[@carcinogeneticist378]

Had to model my first walk cycle for a 3D animation class I’m taking. This video was incredibly helpful! I knew about alternating arms and legs, but the rest of these tips were completely new to me and would have otherwise flown over my head!

[@matasskudra4385]

Excited!!!

[@user-rq9kv8hu9r]

It's always a big help. Thanks for the content.

[@motionlabstudio]

I can't tell you how many times our freelancers have got the arm and leg swings in the wrong order! My goodness. Great video!

[@cayoyoshimura9570]

Loved the content, nice explanation and examples!

[@jeorc]

Thanks for sharing. This is pretty valuable information.

[@gameofgnome8991]

You made my day. Thank You So Much!

[@Mohit_N.R]

This was really helpful, Now I know ehat I was missing. Thank you !! ❤️

[@user-wq2nc8or5r]

Урок отличный, хотелось бы видеть больше таких видео !)

[@annafromm6]

Thank you! Very usefull video! Found out my own mistakes! will try to improve my animations further

[@coconutjelly_]

i love your tutorial!

[@arisynily1882]

Wheel chair character:" I'm 4 parallel universes ahead you"

[@FREDO-py4ti]

Thank you for these precious advices !!!

[@motiondesignschool]

You're welcome ;)

[@aymenhaq7775]

I consult this video a lot and this is so funny, especially the part with moving the walk cycles.

[@sorituanasution1180]

I'm really having trouble in making this, hopefully i can get it done right this time... Thanks for the knowledge you sharing👍

[@MsAlenka1993]

Thanks a lot 🔥

[@sirlean-beautysubliminals-5515]

great video many thanks

[@pimmiebear5912]

walk is a simple and hardest thing to do! THANKS a lot guy!

[@ramise5932]

Thanks that’s very helpful!

[@motiondesignschool]

It's a pleasure to be of help ;)

[@butterlinh]

Thank you for this

[@sarahosness3448]

Omg the face in the thumbnail is priceless 🤣

[@motiontomeproduction6003]

Brilliant video

[@azddines4077]

amazing

[@pahalasiboro5072]

nice. i like this video. i waiting for the next video like this sir....

[@richardrogers361]

I love the gradient on the background buildings @1:50

[@alithomaga]

thank's dude for this.

[@motiondesignschool]

you're welcome. Extremely glad that it helped you :)

[@LOCKSHADES]

It took several suggestions for me to actually take time to read your thumbnail and even then it took me being insecure with my animation to actually try this out. I could have missed out on a lot just because of a thumbnail😅

[@QwecySlim]

Cool tips

[@maherazab9421]

Awesome

[@mehdiarjmandi5280]

tnx

[@lunalaba1443]

Thanks. Made mistake # 6. I could not understand what was wrong. They helped.

[@ibnuiryanto9883]

Nice

[@fractalattractor8944]

God bless you!

[@AJIMULY0]

Super

[@Mizamook]

Very helpful, and amusing ways to express stuff. I'm quickly finding out how much a noob I am at all this, and it's fascinating! One thing, though .. next time, speak INTO the mic. What you are doing here is talking over the top of the mic. The flat part on the top as you have it is actually the front .. speak into this, and very close to it. .. the SM7 likes proximity, but is also very directional. Cheers!

[@alexgrosul7888]

MOREEEEEEEEEEEEEE

[@yunsuhan]

??와 무료강의 맞아요?? 진짜 너무 좋아요 ㅠㅠ 이런 강의 만들어주셔서 감사합니다

[@ayansiddiqui4559]

Am an animator . This helps me for my anime series "Levi attacks on titan"

[@lushen952]

I was looking at my animation trying to figure out why it looked so stiff and I just googled stiff walking animation and came up with this. Right at the beginning of the video, I realized my brain doesnt work and I had the arms moving in the same motion as the legs and not opposite. I flipped the keyframes on the arms and it looks 10x better right away....damn.

[@amsalik]

thank you very much !!! volume of the video is very low .... i have to crank the volume up almost 90 to 100, and still low... really appreciate your effort !

[@motiondesignschool]

thanks, we're doing our best. Next time we will pay more attention to the sound :)

[@amsalik]

@@motiondesignschool thank you for your concern ... looking forward :)

[@FlyMotion100]

Only i have low sound voume, problem on this video? (From smartphone)

[@Garfield_Minecraft]

I still don't know how to walk correctly in real life lol i see most animation when character walking they don't like to show leg much i think because it's hard :/ or just teleporting cut and jump between the scene

[@PutthePCinmyHands]

0:48

[@amebow]

Отличный урок! Очень классно сделано. Колокольчик

[@Jonathonson]

Motion Design sounds a lot more fancier and technical than Animation.

[@ilmkhal]

is the sound a bit too low for this video?

[@motiondesignschool]

Next time we will pay more attention to the sound :)

[@ilmkhal]

@@motiondesignschool Thank you! Just checking if it was my machine audio is having a problem.

[@dwadeworkx1644]

What if I can't draw? I won't be able to draw the poses. I love the look of your courses, but we are reluctant because I can't draw.

[@celina6969]

The teacher is so handsome, I immediately learn～～～

[@nerd6000]

stfu

[@muhammadmagbago9572]

why is the volume so low

[@arcosprey4811]

The process of animating dinosaurs is such a hassle

[@daringcuteseal]

I walked around my room while watching this

[@32bitsPersona]

What TRULY pains me is when people make the arm and leg on the same side go the same angle, thats not how balance works and it just looks...weird

[@andershattne]

..Popping Knees With Duik anyone?

[@EEGAR]

why so quiet?

[@motiondesignschool]

We took into account these sound issues and in the other videos everything is ok ;)

[@1minute158]

How to make walkcycle with phone : kzbin.info/www/bejne/rmmucpuie7yDeqs

[@davidfitcher2953]

Cringy memes...