The 12 principles of animation
This looks at the force of the motion of things hitting the ground, e.g a ball. The force of the ball hitting the ground squashes the ball flat, then when it bounces back up it stretches back into shape. This effect gives the animation an elastic quality, as objects should react to gravity accordingly.
Anticipation is the preparation for the main action, for example somebody kicking a football.
Staging directs the audiences attention to the main focus of the animation, in the same way a camera focuses on a subject. This helps build a stronger narrative that effectively advances a story.
Straight ahead action is where you draw each frame of an action one after another as you go along. With pose-to-pose, you draw the extremes (the beginning and the end drawings of action) then you go and fill in the middle frames. Pose-to-pose gives you way more control over the action as you can see early on where you want the subject to go instead of hoping to time it right. By doing the main poses first, it allows you to catch any mistakes early. However, sometimes this method feels too perfect and neat. Straight ahead action is less planned and therefore more surprising and fresh. The best technique in animation is to do a combination of both methods because it allows you to have both structure and spontaneity.
When a moving subject comes to a stop, other objects in frame might continue to move in the same direction because of the face of forward momentum. These secondary objects that will move are things like hair, clothing etc. Follow-through can also describe the movement of the primary subject, for example, if you land in a crouch after a jump, before standing up straight, that’s a follow-through.
When you drive a car, it takes a little while to accelerate to 60mph, which is the main principle of ease out. This method is the careful controlling of speeds of objects, thus making their movement more believable.
Most living things move in circular motions, called arcs. Arcs operate along a curved trajectory that adds the illusion of life to an animated object. The arcs in animation also have to change pace according to what the action or movement is, for example, some movement arcs are so fast they’re just blurred.
Secondary actions are gestures that support the main animation to provide more character. They can create more insight to what the character is thinking or doing.
Timing is about where you put on a timeline each frame of action. For example, on a timeline of a ball bouncing, there will be certain sections of the timeline where the ball frames are tightly packed together. This is because the ball is slowing down before it bounces. The success of any animation depends on your sense of timing and takes time to listen to the rhythms of animation.
Exaggeration presents the features of a character and their actions in extremes to provide a comedic or dramatic effect. Exaggeration is a great way to add to the animations narrative and the enhance the storytelling of the character.
Solid drawing is all about making sure that animated forms feel three dimensional. This process involves defining the volume of the character and their characteristics.
Appeal in animation is essential, as people remember real, interesting and engaging characters. Obviously this is subjective, but character design still plays a massive role in the appeal of an animation and how audiences react.
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