Horse animation

[Víctor Paredes]

ok, here is my depressed horse. just a test (one image masked).

[jahnocli]

Ha ha! He DOES look depressed! He moves like a camel though.

[Víctor Paredes]

Ha ha! He DOES look depressed! He moves like a camel though.

hehe, I'm working in a project there is a death horses caravan walking in the desert. I know the walkcycle is far t be perfect, but I'm trying to give him some personality. I try.

[chucky]

Music might be a bit much, but kinda interesting on the subject of paper and horses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv7xv2iX ... v7xv2iX0zQ

[Rasheed]

I've read this mental picture in Animator's Survival Kit: "The front of a horse walks like a man and the back like an ostrich."

[Rasheed]

This is really hard. I've tried to create a few basic shapes representing a horse and animate those, using the tips you gave me.



This is still no way near a normal horse walk cycle.

[jahnocli]

You're improving all the time though! That's got to be a good thing, right?

[Rasheed]

I suppose so, John.

Before I go drawing horses, I guess I first should know how to draw a horse. I think I concentrate on that first. I have found some online tutorials and I have a nice and easy book about animal drawing by Kay Gallwey I have bought a long time ago (2003 or so). That should get me started.

• About.com - Draw a Horse - Step By Step (online)
• Fantasy Art Resource Project - Drawing Horses (online)
• An Introduction To Drawing Animals, by Kay Gallwey (Amazon book listing)

It always comes down to drawing, it seems.

[chucky]

Ok so it looks more like a dog ... or a pig, or maybe a pigdog, and yeah the loop sux. What's up with those back hooves? Boing.

Ooops there's that word. I gotta say Rasheed, this cycle is a lot harder than I was expecting.
might repost improved version... maybe. Sleepy time now.

[Rasheed]

I gotta say Rasheed, this cycle is a lot harder than I was expecting.

I told you so. It is a lot more complicated than a walk cycle of a biped (a human).

If I remember correctly, James Baxter needed six months to get his horse animation right. This means that this type of animation is not something you learn in an afternoon. Of course, he did much more than a mere walk cycle on four legs. He did character animation with a story. He said all animators needs to go through this phase of animating quadrupeds at some point in their careers.

So, it seems to me that horse animation is as much a milestone as the bouncing ball and the sack of flour (and, of course, walking and running on two legs).

[chucky]

Yes you were right Rasheed , -your simple shapes horse is looking good though.
Wait up though there's one thing I noticed. No back knee.
Quadrupeds legs (and BIRDS and dinosaurs for that matter),don't bend backwards, this is a common misconception.
Without the knee, they just can't walk properly and they will have calf muscles on the wrong bones, everything goes out of whack.
You see this often in funny looking critters in video games.
In fact the knee is pushed up and visible in the mass of flesh high on the leg.
Look carefully at the back leg and you will clearly see a correlation between a VERY long foot that leads to the hoof(toes) and an ankle (the bit that seems to point backwards).
Get that knee in and I think you will have it in the bag.

[Rasheed]

Aha, so, unlike humans, who push both with their lower and upper legs, the main thrust of the horse (and birds) comes from the upper legs. The lower legs and hoofs are just used for balance and support.

I guess, because humans stem from tree dwellers, they have relatively strong lower legs and lower arms. The locomotion in trees is quite different from that on the plains. This means humans (or the species that will evolve from humans one day) will probably evolve to walkers, instead of the compromise between climber and walker they are right now. That is, if there will be enough evolutionary pressure to evolve (which there isn't right now, because we live in relatively stable environment).

[slowtiger]

Have a look at some horse anatomy drawing to find where the knees are hiding, like this one: , or google with "horse skeleton". Once you've rigged your horse with the correct number of joints you can go and experiment. I don't mind an unnatural horse walk as long as it's funny and has some personality.

I just saw the film "Sleeping Betty" where a prince on his horse is riding ... and the horse moves in a lot of very un-horsey ways, just for fun! Try to find a clip online.

[heyvern]

A horse is actually walking or running on its toes. If you look closely you can see exactly how the bones match up with our own skeleton.

That is what I find annoying about some of those special effects werewolf movies. They show the transformation from human to wolf... and the knee "breaks" or "snaps" and "bends backwards".

This is so cheezy and shows a total lack of research into anatomy. In reality the foot should get longer and the knee just moves up.

-vern

[Rasheed]

A horse is actually walking or running on its toes. If you look closely you can see exactly how the bones match up with our own skeleton.

You know, before kittens can somewhat walk like normal cats, say between 0 and 3 weeks after birth, they actually crawl on what anatomically are their feet. The knee of a cat, just like that of a horse is located almost near its belly.

Also note that ballerinas doing the full-pointe (on their toes), or even semi-pointe (on the balls of their feet) walk differently than people using their full feet. They move by lifting their toes off the floor, rather than pushing (which would be very painful indeed). Lifting the feet instead of pushing is also the basis of the Pose running technique, where you land on the balls of your feet.

So, it isn't so, that walking on ones toes doesn't appear in humans, nor that walking on their feet doesn't appear in quadrupeds. You can state, however, that isn't the normal method of walking in these animals (where, technically speaking, humans are a kind of animal).