Thursday, 20 November 2025

Walk Cycle Options - or Managing FPS Madness!

Thought I would give a brief tutorial on walk cycle animations.  Currently working on my Tarzan film and am trying to choose what frame rate to work in.


12 fps - Shooting in 2s

This is cartoony and a bit janky but is very time efficient and can look nice with a few 24fps (working on 1's) frames thrown in.


24fps - Shooting on 1s

This is the creme-dela-creme of animation and everything is lovely and smooth.  However maybe a bit to realistic in movement for very cartoony puppets that perhaps would look more natural on 2s.

See here the differences in this rough animation to see the same motion they display dispite having the same timing.  


15fps - Shooting on 2s

This has the nice effect of giving the animation a more sleek motion for a few extra frames of work per second.  Obviously you can throw in a few 30fps (working on 1's) frames for speeding elements if required.  Thinking I may work with this one for the film to be honest as I like the speed.  On 12fps it is too slow and 24fps is too much work so this feels like a nice goldielocks zone.



I see 15fps alot from Kevin Ulrich as he enjoys working at this frame rate as seen on his lego youtube shorts.


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