No surprises here! After creating a walk cycle, it only makes sense to kick things up a notch and create a run cycle too. Many of the principles and concepts you learn by animating a walk apply to a run as well. While the old adage “you must learn to walk before you can run” isn’t literally true in this case, practicing one will definitely help you better understand the other. Here’s what I came up with:

To state the obvious, a run is faster than a walk. I know…..it’s shocking. But this is one of the trickiest things I encountered when animating this cycle. Sure, a run has many of the same main poses as a walk does (with much more exaggerated up and passing poses), but all of these pose transitions happen in a much shorter period of time. Because of this, I’ve often had trouble getting my run cycles to be as “readable” as I’d like them to be. This is especially true during the early stages of the animation. Like I’ve mentioned before, animation is just a form of communication. I want the viewer to understand why (and how) the character is moving in the way that they are. This can be difficult when parts of the character are moving too fast for the eye to track and make sense of. And with a run cycle, the legs and arms can move pretty quickly. My first pass of a run animation is usually a bit frantic looking, with limbs zipping from pose to pose. It’s a little overwhelming for the eye.

I usually try to remedy this during my second pass at the animation. By subtly adjusting the spacing of the arms and legs, they can become a little more readable. I slow down the arms a bit as they swing up towards the body as well as when they’re behind the torso and about to swing forward. I’ll slow down the feet a bit as they come down to make contact with the ground and as they come up off the ground after the “up” pose. Creating these moments of “pause” provides some nice balance and contrast to the motion.

Doing these fixes will usually help my run cycles become a bit more readable and appealing. And if I were to push this spacing a bit more, I could create a run cycle that was a bit more “snappy” and cartoony. I’ll have to give that a try sometime soon! For now, I’m pretty happy with how this cycle came out. There’s certainly some places to improve on, but it’s time to move forward. Next up is a jump animation!

Mulan Rig by CharacterRigs.com

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