Graduation Celebration
CG Animated Parade

Students will create a looping celebratory parade. Students will create an animated GIF loop with a static background, moving background/foreground, and at least 5 walk-cycle characters. Students will create a series of walk cycles with appealing characters using the principles of animation. Students will use the principles of animation to make the animation appealing while making sure their animation layer and background layer integrate well. 

Project Criteria

• Static far background
• Looping moving background
• At least 5 walk cycle characters
• Characters each have secondary action (waving a flag, cheering, bouncing hat, etc.)
• Mood: Celebration
• Theme: Graduation (could be your year, could be for this year's graduating seniors, etc.)
• Color: Limited color palette (3 colors with additional values of those colors okay - up to 6 total color chips)

Looping Walk Cycle

• Each character will need to have at least 8 frames to create a walk loop (12 frames would be smoother). 
• The body should bounce up and down with the change in pose (down when legs are out and up when leg is straight).
• Uses overlap to help distinguish between parts of the character (see shirt and shorts below).

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Walk Cycles

Parades

Demonstrations

Going over the project

Starting a Walk Cycle

Continuing Drawing the Character & Adjusting Timing

Finishing Character 1 & Starting Character 2

Continuing Character 2

Finishing Character 2

Starting Character 3

Continuing Character 3

Starting Character 4

Continuing Character 4

Finishing Character 4

Starting Character 5

Continuing Character 5

Finishing Character 5

Moving Background

Sliding Characters in front of Background

Sliding Characters then Adjusting for Footfalls

Steps to Follow

FOR EACH CHARACTER (5 Characters minimum)

1. Draw a GROUND LINE
2. Import a WALK CYCLE REFERENCE 
3. Create a MOTION GUIDE LAYER underneath the ground line layer and place the reference
4. Decide on the CHARACTER DESIGN
5. Be sure to figure out the SECONDARY ACTION
6. DRAW the outlines of each character position, matching the walk cycle leg movements
7. Adjust the TIMING to make the character feel celebratory, happy, bouncy, jovial
8. Adjust any motion concerns with the character and the secondary action
9. Add COLOR (limited color palette - matches colors used in previous characters)

FOR THE BACKGROUND

• Use desaturated values of the colors you are already using in your color palette
• Looping motion should be slower than the characters (so you'll ned several loops of your characters to make one loop of the background) [the example uses 15 frames for each character cycle and 90 frames for the background]

CHARACTER ONE

CHARACTER TWO

CHARACTER THREE

CHARACTER FOUR

CHARACTER FIVE

MOVING BACKGROUND

FINAL LOOPING GIF WITH MOVING BACKGROUND AND TRAVELING CHARACTERS

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