Saturday, August 7th, 2021 Posted by Jim Thacker

Discover how to animate a creature walk cycle in Maya


The Gnomon Workshop has released Animating Creature Walk Cycles in Maya: a guide to animating quadruped walk cycles recorded by Framestore previs artist Stephen Cunnane.

Master the fundamentals of animating quadruped walk cycles in Maya
In the workshop, which comprises over three hours of video training, Cunnane sets out the fundamental principles of animating a convincing walk cycles for four-legged animals and fantasy creatures.

Using a free dragon character rig created by Truong CG Artist, Cunnane sets up a basic walk cycle in Maya, before animating the dragon’s wings, neck and head to create a convincing creature animation.

He also provides breakdowns of foot and body movement and explains how to take a final walk cycle and build a new animation for use in production.

Topics covered include the importance of importing a rig as a proxy, using Maya’s Reference Editor to keep the scene organised, baking, motion tracking, and using animation layers to add secondary motion.

About the artist
Stephen Cunnane is a previs artist at leading VFX facility Framestore.

He previously worked as a character animator at Rhythm & Hues on the shows Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, and at MPC on the movies Maleficent: Mistress of Evil and The One and Only Ivan.

Pricing and availability
Animating Creature Walk Cycles in Maya is available via an online subscription to The Gnomon Workshop. Subscriptions cost $49/month or $490/year. You can try the training for free.

Read more about Animating Creature Walk Cycles in Maya


Full disclosure: CG Channel is owned by Gnomon.