After Effects walk cycle V1

Experimenting some more with After Effects and its animation capabilities. I tried to make a walk cycle using my the second technique Jon showed us. I split my puppet into layers for each body part — e.g. sleeve, forearm, body, thigh, shin — and rounded out the tops of each limb to allow for smooth rotation. I adjusted the anchor points for each limb, placing them roughly where the joint would be, so that they rotated semi-realistically.

I made each layer a parent of its corresponding lower body parts so that when, for example, I rotated the thigh, the rest of the leg would follow.

Just by playing around and rotating each limb I can see where I need to make alterations to my puppet. There's a little excess on the thigh layer that pokes out when I rotate the shin so I need to trim that down a bit.

I'm quite pleased with the way the arm rotates. It works fairly nicely so luckily I don't need to make any alterations there.

Slightly stupidly I forgot to make a rear arm for the puppet. I simply duplicated the front arm and flipped the sleeve/forearm and tucked it underneath the body layer. It's not brilliant but for all intents and purposes, it works!

The foot layer needs rounding out a the top so that it doesn't suddenly cut off whenever I rotate it. In an attempt to give the puppet some depth I made his rear leg slightly smaller and higher up, so I placed a couple of guides on the canvas to help designate both ground levels for each foot.

For a first attempt it didn't come out too badly. It's a little robotic and I think the bounce might be too much, but it works. Somehow I managed to completely screw up the keyframe placement/spacing so that the timing is all over the place. One step is much quicker than the other as a result. Fortunately I've discovered the glory that is the "move forward/backward one frame" shortcut (Cmd + right/left arrow) so next time I will be able to ensure the keyframes are evenly spaced.

After Effects' auto-inbetweening isn't terribly accurate — it doesn't know that I'm trying to animate a walk cycle, so it simply takes the most straightforward path from one keyframe to another. This results in the puppet floating all over the place as he walks. I was slightly able to rectify this by manually adjusting the rotation and position of the body/feet to help keep it anchored to the floor but it's still not terribly accurate. I need to see if there's a way to keep the feet anchored to the floor?

Nonetheless I'm much more comfortable with this way of working. It allows much more control over the movement than the puppet pin does. With a little time and patience I think I can get a walk cycle that looks halfway decent!