How to Create a Run Cycle Animation with Apple Motion 5

a run cycle is a series of animations that loops infinitely to create the illusion of a running character in this tutorial we're going to show you how to animate a basic run cycle we'll be showing you how to create this running llama in apple motion without using any third party plugin before animating let's see what we need to design to create this llama run cycle animation we'll need to draw two trajectories or motion paths these trajectories will be used to animate the legs later for the llama design we'll need a llama body group inside the llama body group we have a neck group that contains a head and a neck fleece are fiber groups a body group and a tail group we also need four legs a saddle and a shadow the most important thing to animate first is the llama's body we'll start with keyframing the y position and z rotation of the llama's body to create the up and down motion add keyframes to create timing on the timeline timing is the number of frames in which an action takes place then set the keyframe values and edit their tangents from the graph editor to adjust spacing spacing is the distance the llama body moves between frames in animation timing and spacing give characters the illusion of moving within the laws of physics both timing and spacing are crucial to make an animation look smooth and natural we're going to adjust the tangents to create a subtle bouncing animation for the llama's body after having the body's bouncing movement let's continue with animating the llama's legs objects in motion usually don't move in straight lines instead they tend to move in arcs when the llama runs its feet should be moving in a smooth arc to achieve this we created two trajectories and we would make the llamas legs follow these trajectories by keyframing the leg's control points let's start with one leg first each leg has two control points and each control point will follow its own trajectory let's add starting and ending keyframes to the llama's leg adjust the leg's curve using the control points tangents handles when the foot is on the ground it should move linearly in a straight line without changes in speed do when the llama's body starts to go down the leg will continue to move up to the trajectory's highest point one more frame before going down with the body when following the trajectory the feet will ease in here then ease out ease in and ease out again to create a smooth cycle adjust the timing and spacing of the control points keyframes to achieve this motion my you duplicate the leg that we have just animated to create another leg adjust their anchor points and change the duplicated legs position then copy and paste these keyframes find the center keyframe where the foot is on the ground and delete all keyframes before it then move all keyframes backward and delete these keyframes if the upper control point is moving too much we can fix it by decreasing the size of the upper trajectory and adjust the upper control point's keyframes again you duplicate the front legs to create behind legs don't forget to name your layers the right legs should be placed above the body layer and the left legs are under the body layer then adjust the hind leg's position like this select repeat after last keyframe for each leg to create a perfect loop then move the hind legs one frame backward to offset them offsetting keyframes will help randomize the motion so that all four legs will not move simultaneously at the same speed after the legs are animated we'll add some subtle animation to the head but before doing that let's add some rotation to the body select repeat for after last keyframe and before first keyframe to the body's rotation to loop it then move all rotation keyframes forward one frame to offset them copy the body's rotation keyframes and paste them to the neck decrease the body's rotation keyframe values if needed so that the neck doesn't look like it's swinging then loop the next keyframes and offset them copy the next rotation keyframes and paste them to the head before pasting keyframes make sure to adjust the head's anchor point loop the head's keyframes and offset them then increase its keyframe values to animate the saddle we'll keyframe its x and y scale you make sure the saddle's motion is timed perfectly with the body's movement do copy the body's y position keyframes and paste them to the saddle then adjust the saddle's y-position keyframes to create overlapping action and we will have this bouncy saddle next we will animate the llama's shadow by keyframing its x and y scale foreign to animate the llamas fleece or fiber we will copy the head's z rotation keyframes and paste them to the fleece layers that belong to the neck group then copy the next z rotation keyframe and paste them to other fleece layers in the body group copy the head's z rotation keyframes and paste them to the tail when the body moves up the tail will go down so we will have to flip the tail's keyframes to animate the ear and fleece layers inside the head group we will copy the head's z rotation keyframes adjust the ears anchor point then paste the head's z rotation keyframes to the ear and fleece layers inside the head group after the entire run is finished you can go back to add more subtle details and refine your animation until it's polished creating run cycles can be a daunting task for beginners but it's important for every animator to master the skills of creating run cycles to make your audience find the running motion convincing we hope you enjoy this video and have fun creating the llamas run cycle thank you for watching and see you in the next video you

Channel: Simple Video Making

Views: 4,005

Keywords: apple motion, apple motion 5, run cycle, running character, character animation, running cycle, motion graphics, mograph, animated animal, animal animation, animation, animate, animating, animation tutorial, basic run cycle, running llama, animation tutorials, free tutorials, free animation tutorial, motion design, character design, 2d animation, 2d, 2d character, motion 5 tutorials, motion 5 tutorial, apple motion 5 tutorial, simple animation

Id: Ol4CS-7ENts

Length: 26min 2sec (1562 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 07 2021