Tech "Cheap walk/run cycles" (Patreon)

I took inspiration on classic games for this one. Walk cycles are one of the pillars of the animation, most characters need them and they´re not easy, however when you have limited resources/specs you have to draw upon cheap loops.

The minimum amount of frames you need for "the magic" is 2, and that´s the number of frames of Super Mario Bros 2 (Nes - 1988) characters have for walk/run. So limited frames works fine only on simple and chibi characters. Curiously in the first Super Mario Bros game the walking animation of main character was of 3 frames. More frames more detail, however 3 is short for a looping action, so an easy and cheap trick that would became an industry standard was the one we can see in the first Megaman game (1987). The "ABCB sequence" (or basically a ping-pong loop), It´s still a 3 frame animation but designed to have a match one repeated for a longer 4 frame animation. This way the loop is more fluid and you save one frame/sprite.

The last one is the first on the scheme, I´m the best at layout design. The cheapest possible is a 2 frame animation done basically with 1,5 frames. Waist up the char doesn't change, only the chibi stylised legs does, plus a particle effect near the head to break the up body stillness.