How to Do a Simple Walk Animation in Poser

Poser is a CGI application that has been used for years by both amateurs and professionals to create both still images and animation. But the animation properties of Poser are not always easy and straightforward. In this tutorial, I will show you have to create a basic walk animation using Poser Pro and its built-in Walk Designer.

First, you need to start Poser Pro. When it opens, it gives you a default scene using the Poser Pro male, Simon G2. While you could load another figure, say one of the Daz3d models like Victoria 4 or Michael 4, we will just go ahead and use Simon for this tutorial. Next, go to the Menu and click Figure. Then select Create Walk Path. Go to the pointy finger camera controls and zoom out a bit. As you can see in image one, Poser has dropped a walk path directly in front of Simon.

Now go back over to the camera controls, and click on the little down-arrow. Select the top camera. Now zoom out until you can see the entire path. As you can see in image two, the path is made up a series of points connected by a line. If you place your cursor over the line and click, you can add additional points to the ones already on the line. If you hover your cursor over one of these points, you will see that the crosshairs darken. You can drag these points around to modify the path the figure will walk. As you can also see in image two, I have made the path into a rough circle.

Once you have the path the way you want it, go back to the camera control and switch to the Main camera. Now go up to the menu and click on Window, and select Walk Designer. After Poser spins for a second, the Walk Designer dialogue opens. If you look at image three, you will see that the Walk Designer has a viewer, a group of sliders called Blend Styles, another group of sliders called tweaks, and several buttons at the bottom. They are, left to right, Figure Type (which allows you to load cr2s for figures other than the standard ones), Walk (which activates the walk motion in the viewer), Defaults (which returns all the settings to zero) Load (to load a Walk that was saved as a file), Save (to save a walk for later use), and finally Apply (which applies the settings to the figure).

Now simply select A Blend Style (I'm choosing Power at 50% and Run at 20%). No click Walk to see if you have a walk you like. If not, make changes. Then click apply, and another dialogue pops up that give you options related to how the head is aligned during the walk, how the figure starts and ends its pose, the number of frames, and what animation layer the new walk will be on. After you pick the ones you want and x out of the Walk Designer dialogue, you will see that the walk you created has been applied. Just go down to the timeline and click play