L1.2 Principles of Animation PDF

Animation Design & Production Lesson 1.2: Principles of Animation  What are the Principles of Animation? The most crucial techniques you must master as an animator Created in the 1930s (and first introduced in The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation) by the pioneers of animation, Fr...

Animation Design & Production Lesson 1.2: Principles of Animation  What are the Principles of Animation? The most crucial techniques you must master as an animator Created in the 1930s (and first introduced in The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation) by the pioneers of animation, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston These 12 principles of animation adhere to the basic laws of physics and also account for emotions and appeal. While originally developed for pencil sketching, the same principles apply to digital animation as well. They should be your ultimate guide for creating appealing and realistic character animations.  The 12 Principles of Animation Squash and Stretch Anticipation Staging Straight Ahead Action and Pose-to-Pose Follow Through and Overlapping Action Ease In, Ease Out Arcs Secondary Action Timing Exaggeration Solid Drawing Appeal  Squash and Stretch Squash and stretch is what gives flexibility to objects. Squash and stretch is debatably the most fundamental principle. Look at what happens when a ball hits the ground. The force of the motion squashes the ball flat, but because an object needs to maintain its volume, it also widens on impact. This what’s called squash and stretch.  Squash and Stretch This effect gives animation an elastic life-like quality because although it may not seem like it, squash and stretch is all around you. All shapes are distorted in some way or another when acted upon by an outside force; it’s just harder to see in real-life. Squash and stretch imitates that and exaggerates it to create some fun.  Squash and Stretch When the letters spring from the ground, they elongate to show the impression of speed. Conversely, the letters squash horizontally when they come into contact with the ground. This conveys a sense of weight in each letter.  Anticipation Imagine you’re about to kick a soccer ball. What’s the first thing you do? Do you swing your foot back to wind up? Steady yourself with your arms? That’s anticipation. Anticipation is used in animation to set the audience up for an action that is about to happen, and is required to sell believable movements.  Anticipation An easy way to think about this is before a baseball player pitches the ball, they first need to move their entire body and arm backward to gain enough energy to throw the ball forward. If an animated person needs to move forward, they first must move back. Or, if a character is reaching for a glass on a table, they must first move their hand back. This not only gets up their momentum, but it lets the audience know this person is about to move.  Anticipation Other cases where anticipation is used include when a character looks off screen when someone is arriving, or when a character’s attention is focused on something they are about to do.  Staging When filming a scene, where do you put the camera? Where do the actors go? What do you have them do? The combination of all these choices is what we call staging. Staging is one of the most overlooked principles. It directs the audience’s attention toward the most important elements in a scene in a way that effectively advances the story.  Staging In the clip below from the video Sevanta Dealflow, the placement of the character within the scene allows us to quickly follow his actions and gives us a good sense of the physical layout. The protagonist can’t see his subordinate, but the subordinate is so busy that the sound of his scurrying to and fro is enough to draw his attention.  Staging This motivates the cut to a medium shot, which then pulls back to the two-shot to reveal that his colleague is also worried about this problem. It builds from problem to realization to shared understanding, to the beginning of a solution, all in a visual telling.  Straight-Ahead Action and Pose-to-Pose These are two ways of drawing animation. 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 – that is, the beginning and end drawings of action – then you go on to the middle frame, and start to fill in the frames in-between  Straight-Ahead Action and Pose- to-Pose Pose-to-pose gives you more control over the action. You can see early on where your character is going to be at the beginning and end instead of hoping you’re getting the timing right. By doing the main poses first, it allows you to catch any major mistakes early. The problem with it is that sometimes it comes off as too neat and perfect.  Straight-Ahead Action and Pose-to- Pose Straight-ahead action is less planned, and therefore more fresh and surprising. The problem with it is that it’s like running blindfolded… you can’t figure out where you’re supposed to be at any one time. Mastering both techniques and combining them is the best approach to being a successful animator because then you can get both structure and spontaneity. And incidentally, this distinction is just as important in computer animation, where molding a pose at each keyframe is the equivalent of making a drawing.  Follow Through and Overlapping Action Follow through is the idea that separate parts of the body will continue moving after the character has come to a stop. As a character comes to a stop from a walk, the arms may continue forward before settling in a down position. This could also be the case with articles of clothing.  Follow Through and Overlapping Action The secondary elements (hair, clothing, fat) are following-through on the primary element, and overlapping its action. Follow-through can also describe the movement of the primary element though. If you land in a crouch after a jump, before standing up straight, that’s follow-through.  Ease In and Ease Out As any object moves or comes to a stop, there needs to be a time for acceleration and deceleration. Without ease in and ease out (or slow in and slow out), movements become very unnatural and robotic. As a car moves away from a stop, it doesn’t just reach full speed in an instant. It must first gain speed. As it comes to a stop, it doesn’t go from sixty to zero in the blink of an eye. Instead, it slows down until it reaches a complete stop.  Ease In and Ease Out The same must be accomplished in animation and the easiest way to accomplish ease in and ease out is to utilize the principle of spacing. As a character stands up from a sitting position, the spacing of each pose will be closer together at the start so that they can ease into the movement. As they stand up, they will ease out of the movement by spacing the poses further apart at the end of the action.  Ease In and Ease Out Without this acceleration and deceleration of actions, everything would be very abrupt and jerky. The ease in, ease out technique works to make the action more fluid and realistic.  Arcs Life doesn’t move in straight lines, and neither should animation. Most living beings – including humans – move in circular paths called arcs. Arcs operate along a curved trajectory that adds the illusion of life to an animated object in action. Without arcs, your animation would be stiff and mechanical.  Arcs The fluid arcing motion of the arms adds grace to the animation. The speed and timing of an arc are crucial. Sometimes an arc is so fast that it blurs beyond recognition. This is called an animation smear. The fluid arcing motion of the arms adds grace to the animation.  Secondary Action Secondary actions are gestures that support the main action to add more dimension to character animation. They can give more personality and insight to what the character is doing or thinking.  Secondary Action In the above example from a video DeerPro, a deer takes a bite of a leaf sprayed with DeerPro repellant. The primary action is the deer spitting out the leaf when he realizes it’s no good. The secondary action is the slight tail wag that shows the deer’s relief to have the awful taste out of his mouth.  Timing and Spacing Timing and Spacing in animation is what gives objects and characters the illusion of moving within the laws of physics. Timing refers to the number of frames between two poses, or the speed of action.  Timing and Spacing Timing is about where on a timeline you put each frame of action. To see what this means in action For example, if a ball travels from screen left to screen right in 24 frames, that would be timing. It takes 24 frames or 1 second (if you’re working within the film rate of 24 rates per second) for the ball to reach the other side of the screen. Timing can also establish mood, emotion, and personality.  Timing and Spacing Notice that at the top of each bounce, the balls are packed closer together. That is because the ball is slowing down as it reaches the peak of the bounce. As the ball falls from its peak it and accelerates, the spacing starts becoming wider. Notice also how many drawings there are in each bounce. As the momentum of the ball diminishes, the bounces become shorter and more frequent (i.e., the number of frames in each bounce decrease.)  Timing and Spacing In practice, the success of your animation is going to depend on your sense of timing. Train yourself to listen to the rhythms and timings of your animation. You will see instances where a gag might be twice as funny if you just delay it by three frames more. It often helps to add sound early – whether it is music, voice, sound effects, or all of the above – because the ear is better attuned to subtleties of timing than the eye is.  Exaggeration Sometimes more is more. Exaggeration presents a character’s features and actions in an extreme form for comedic or dramatic effect. This can include distortions in facial features, body types, and expressions, but also the character’s movement. Exaggeration is a great way for an animator to increase the appeal of a character, and enhance the storytelling.  Exaggeration The deer turns into a mini tornado of destruction to show how much damage deer can do to a yard. This is clearly an exaggeration for the sake of humor and getting the point across. The scene(Asthen well turns as being a homage to the young to the Tasmanian Devil of Looney Tunes fame!) watching in horror as the deer couple ruins their shrubbery. Both of their eyes are stretched wide in bewilderment, and the man’s jaw is practically on the floor. This exaggeration of their facial features is way more effective than a slight frown or small gasp might be.  Solid Drawing Solid drawing is all about making sure that animated forms feel like they’re in three-dimensional space. The character design by Robert Kopecky for Proscenium is a good example of solid drawing. Kopecky is creating a character that will live through various iterations of history in the video.  Solid Drawing He starts by defining the volume of the character, which he describes in this character sheet at a teardrop/bowling pin. Then he adds different clothing, hair, and accessories to the character to take him to various parts of history. Notice how you can see the other side of the body shape on the inside of the mouth. But also, even when he is departing from three-dimensionality for graphic effect, as in the position of the eyes, he defines that in the character sheet too.  Appeal People remember real, interesting, and engaging characters. Animated characters should be pleasing to look at and have a charismatic aspect to them; this even applies to the antagonists of the story. Appeal can be hard to quantify because everyone has a different standard. That said, you can give your character a better chance of being appealing by making them attractive to look at.  Appeal Play around with different shapes and proportions of characters to keep things fresh. Enlarging the most defining feature of a character can go a long way to giving the character personality. Strive for a good balance between detail and simplicity. Below are a few examples of character appeal from some of our explainer videos.