The Zombie - Animation in Character FX

ADD SOME FRAMES1. I Clicked the box marked red and typed 21 to give me 21 frames of animation, I'll add more later. 2. This area is the PLAY/LOOP RANGE markers, by pulling the arrows on either end you can designate which range of frames will play when you press the play button.



NEUTRAL FRAMESI moved in the LOOP MARKERS to play frames 2-20, while on frame 1 I pressed the BIG KEY with a PLUS underneath up top, to add keyframes, I then toggled copy as marked in red, dragged a selection box around all the frame one keys and copied em to frame 2 and frame 21, this is just the standard neutral pose, I like to put them either side of each anim, then I have a basic pose to for when I want to add more animations!


POSE 1FIRST I switched on AUTOKEYFRAMING as shown then moved the slider so the focus is on Frame 2. Then using the ROTATE tool to pose him, arms rotated opposite to the legs. Then I copied frame 2 to Frame 20 to make each end of the anim, in the middle I will move the arms/legs opposite and they'll move back and forth.


POSE 2I moved the slider to frame 11 (center of the frames) and rotated his arms and legs into the same position as POSE 1 but opposite, ie leg that was forward is now backward, etc. Press play and he walks, needs lots of tweaking but its a start :-)


TWEAKINGTwo Frames (although I moved it to 3 later) after the back leg starts moving forward, I rotated at the knee to lift up the foot, this bends the leg as it swings forward. I did the same for the other leg on frame 14 so that also bends after it starts to swing forward. I figured this out by walking around and thinking/watching about how I/others walked :-)


MORE TWEAKINGAs you can see the foot goes through the floor, so I find a frame where its doing so and rotate the leg etc to make sure its on the surface. Also I make the body move up and down slightly with each step and rotate the shoulders and hips slightly. I also twist the head a little, its basically lots of subtle movements now and AUTOKEYFRAMING sets keys anytime I move a joint, I just have to watch what Frame I'm on!!!!!!


LOOPI have set the range to 2-19 so I dont include the final frame which is the same as the first and is therefore getting played twice and you'll notice a pause in the anim. This not exactly in-depth I know but its a difficult subject :-) Final advice would be to observe people, and get animating, after your first few tries you'll get the hang of it!!! Good Luck!



The AnimAs you can see after his legs go back they bend before swinging forward. His arm also does something similar, after swinging fully forward, I bent it forward a little about three frames after. His head and shoulders slightly turn opposite to each other and the main body goes up and down slightly. Hope you found this useful somehow!!!!