“Walk Cycle – part 2 ” by Joshua Murphy In this tutorial, you will learn how to animate a human walk cycle. For this tutorial you will need atleast an intermediate knowledge of 3DS Max, or your preferred 3d application. In this tutorial, I will be using 3DS Max 2008, so if you have an older version or if you are using a different 3d application, your button configuration maybe be slightly different.
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Create a dummy object like we did earlier, but this time, position it like the images above. Also, link the dummy object that you create to both top (thigh) bones of your legs. 
Notice, when you select the top (hip) dummy, you move both sets of legs. Now I will show you how to animate a simple human walk cycle. Select the Autokey button at the bottom, under the Perspective viewport, see how your timeline turns red, that lets you know that you are ready to animate. Now, move your timeline slider to frame 10 and select the right foot dummy and move it up and to the right a bit like the image below. Now move the top (hip) dummy foward and up a bit to create a fluid motion of a person walking. Select the blue plus sign gizmoat the heel and move that to create the right angle of the foot and leg.
Now move to frame 20 and move the dummy and blue plus sign gizmo forward, back to the “ground” level like the image below.
Repeat these steps for the left leg/foot bones. Once this has been done, you will have to go back and tweak the animation to conform to how you want the character to move. When creating a walk cycle, be it for a human, animal or creature, you will have to do alot of tweaking of the animation to get the motion to be fluid and to fit the idea of the character that you have in your head.
I have included the .max file with this tutorial. The zip file below contains a .max and .3ds file, if you are using 3D MAX 2008, the max file will be just fine. If you are using an older version of 3D MAX, then the .3ds file will work.
I hope this tutorial and files were helpful. Good modeling!
(c) Joshua Murphy, http://www.3dhuntsville.com
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