12 Principles of Animation
These 12 animation principles of animation were first introduced in “The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation” by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. These 12 principles are seen as the guide to create appealing and realistic character animations
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. For example, if a ball travels from screen left to screen right in 24 frames that would be the timing. It takes 24 frames or one second for the ball to reach the other side of the screen.
The spacing refers to how those individual frames are placed, such as the spacing in this example would be how the ball is positioned in the other 23 frames. If the spacing is close together, the object moves slower, if the spacing is further apart the object moves faster.
The spacing refers to how those individual frames are placed, such as the spacing in this example would be how the ball is positioned in the other 23 frames. If the spacing is close together, the object moves slower, if the spacing is further apart the object moves faster.
Squash and Stretch
This action gives the illusion of weight and volume to a character as it moves. Also squash and stretch is useful in animating dialogue and doing facial expressions. Squash and Stretch is what gives flexibility to objects. There’s a lot of squash and stretch happening in real life that you may not notice; in animation this can be exaggerated. For example as the ball starts to fall and picks up speed, the ball will stretch out just before impact, and as the ball impacts the ground, it squashes, and as it takes off again it stretches.
Anticipation
Anticipation is used in animation to set the audience up for the action that is about to happen. For example if a character needs to move forward, they will first move back, this gets their momentum up and lets the audience know this person is about to move. Anticipation is also required to make a movement believable. For example, before a baseball player pitches they first need to move their entire body and arm back to gain enough energy.
Ease In and Ease Out
As any object or person 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 slow out), movements become very unnatural and robotic. For example, as a car starts from a stop, it doesn’t just reach full speed in an instant, it first must accelerate and gain speed. As it comes to a stop it doesn’t go from sixty to zero in the blink of an eye, if it did, it would be extremely uncomfortable. Instead, it slowly decelerates until it reaches a complete stop.
The same must be accomplished in an 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 will be closer together at the start, so they ease into the movement, and as they stand up, they will ease out of the movement. Without this acceleration and deceleration of actions everything would be very abrupt and jerky.
The same must be accomplished in an 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 will be closer together at the start, so they ease into the movement, and as they stand up, they will ease out of the movement. Without this acceleration and deceleration of actions everything would be very abrupt and jerky.
Follow Through and Overlapping Action
Although follow though and overlapping are very closely related they are considered to be two different principles. Follow through is the idea that separate parts of the body will continue moving after the character has come to a stop. For example, as a character comes to a stop from a walk, every part of the body won’t stop at the exact same time, instead, the arms may continue forward before coming to a settle. Overlapping action is very similar in that it means different parts of the body will move at different times. For example, if a character raises their arms up to wave, the shoulder will move first, and then the arm, and the elbow and hand may lag behind a few frames. Follow through and overlapping action makes the character movement look more realistic and fluid.
Arcs
In real life everything typically move in some form of arcing motion, and in animation you should incorporate this in order to make it smoother and movement more realistic. For example, if a character is turning their head, they will dip their head down during the turn to create an acr motion. This only exception to this principle is when you are animating a robot as you want it to move in an unnatural straight line.
Exaggeration
Exaggeration is used to push movements further to add more appeal to an action. Exaggeration can be used to create extremely cartoony movements, or incorporated with a little more restrain to more realistic actions. If you have a realistic animation you can use exaggeration to make a more readable or fun movement while staying true to reality. For example, if a character is preparing to jump off a diving board you can push them down just a little bit further before they leap off.
Solid Drawing
In 2D Animation, solid drawing is about creating an accurate drawing with volume and weight, and thinking about balance, and the anatomy in a pose.
While in 3D animation, animators are less likely to rely on their drawings, but the idea of solid drawing is just as important. With solid drawing you need to think about how you pose out your 3D character rig, ensuring there is correct balance and weight in the pose, as well as a clear silhouette. You also want to avoid what is called “twinning,” which basically means the pose you have created is mirrored across to the other side.
While in 3D animation, animators are less likely to rely on their drawings, but the idea of solid drawing is just as important. With solid drawing you need to think about how you pose out your 3D character rig, ensuring there is correct balance and weight in the pose, as well as a clear silhouette. You also want to avoid what is called “twinning,” which basically means the pose you have created is mirrored across to the other side.
Appeal
This principle is all about adding more appeal in many different areas of your animation, such as appeal in posing. However, the most obvious example is appeal in the character design, you want to have a character that the audience can connect to or relate to. A complicated or confusing character design can lack appeal. You can find areas on the character to push and exaggerate to create a more unique character design that will stick out in the audience’s memory.
Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose
Straight ahead and pose to pose refers to the two different techniques for how you go about animating. With straight ahead it’s a very spontaneous and more of a linear approach. You’ll create each pose or drawing of the animation one after the other. For example, if you’re animating a character jumping in the air you would create the pose where he’s standing, the next where he is beginning to kneel down, the next would be him completely crouched, and so on. With pose to pose it’s much more methodical and planned out, with just the most important poses required to properly tell the action. For example, you could approach the exact same action with four poses, the character standing, crouched, in the air, and back on the ground. It allows you to work much simpler, and ensure the posing and timing is correct before adding more detail.
Secondary Action
Secondary action refers to creating actions that emphasize or support the main action of the animation; it can breathe more life into an animation and create a more convincing performance.It’s important to remember that the secondary action should typically be something subtle that doesn’t detract from the main action happening, and can be thought of as almost a subconscious action. For example, a character talking to another character in a waiting room, the two of them talking would be the main action, and if that character began tapping their foot nervously, that would be the secondary action.
Staging
Staging is how you go about setting up your scene, from the placement of the characters to the background and foreground elements and how the camera angle is set up. The purpose of staging is to make the purpose of the animation unmistakably characters expression clearly, or setting up two different characters so that both of them are easily viewed from the specific angles.
You want to keep focus on the purpose of the shot and what you want to communicate so the audience doesn’t become confused.
You want to keep focus on the purpose of the shot and what you want to communicate so the audience doesn’t become confused.
Referencing
http://wwwhowdesign.com/web-design-resources-technology/12-basic-principles-animation-motion-design/
http://www.animationtoolworks.com/library/article9.html
http://blog.digitaltutors.com/understanding-12-principles-animation/
http://www.animationtoolworks.com/library/article9.html
http://blog.digitaltutors.com/understanding-12-principles-animation/
Presentation
Maya Show Reel
Maya Projects
Project 1 - Bouncy Balls
For our first Maya project we had to animate three different types of balls, which would be decided within the group, my group was made up of John, Beccaa and Jenny. Unfortunately I was off sick the first week when we were assigned this project, so it left me out of the discussion section of the project. However my team kept me up- to-date and by doing some research I was able to produce three animations of balls bouncing. I started my research by looking up videos of balls bouncing in order to see how they are affected when they hit the ground. I then looked up videos on youtube on how to use maya to animate balls; I found this very helpful and this allowed me to quickly pick up how to use maya to make a basic animation. Within the group we all produced very different animations, I feel like this was because we had a slight lack of communication in the first week.
Research
Maya Balls
Project 2 - Obstacle course
This week we were given the task of animating a ball travelling through an obstacle course that Alec had provided on Blackboard. We held a group meeting and came to an agreement on what path the ball would travel, which was posted on the group chat for referencing while animating the course. We then went our separate ways and animated our course which we shared on the group chat with each other, giving feedback and advice on how to improve it.
My Obstacle Course
Project 3 - Arm Rig
This week we were given an arm rig to practice overlapping and follow through animation on. In class Alec demonstrated how to offset the keyframes on each section of the rig to create a more realistic movement. Alec uploaded the Arm Rig to blackboard for us to practice and make a more realistic movement, I started by watching a few youtube videos on overlapping and followed a few in animation. I then decided to begin by making the arm move in an unnatural way, then work on making it more fluid and lifelike. I shared my progress with my group getting feedback and advice on how to improve the movements.
Research
Unnatural Arm Movement
More Natural Arm Movement
Project 4 - Pose to Pose & Forward Animation
For our final take we were given the task of animating a worm character interacting with objects. The group did some research into the method of straight ahead and pose to pose animation. So far in all of our maya projects we had used straight ahead animation with the maya program, fill in the in-between frames automatically. We discussed this as a group and decided to continue with the method as we had the most confidences in it.
For my worm animation I wanted to try to get it over a wall to retrieve its ball. I was planning on doing this by making the worm look about, find a cube and push it against the wall so it could jump over the wall. However I ran out of time trying to complete this animation so I changed it to the worm pushing and jumping on top of the box to look over the wall at the ball.
For my worm animation I wanted to try to get it over a wall to retrieve its ball. I was planning on doing this by making the worm look about, find a cube and push it against the wall so it could jump over the wall. However I ran out of time trying to complete this animation so I changed it to the worm pushing and jumping on top of the box to look over the wall at the ball.
Research
Worm Animation
Self Assessment
The Maya assignments this semester I have found them challenging and fun. Out of the course modules I felt most comfortable with Maya. Although I was very nervous at the beginning of this module, especially as I ended up missing the first class, I watched YouTube videos and read up on the Maya software which made me feel a bit more confident.
I felt that doing the assignments allowed me to develop a better understand of the 12 principles of animations, as I got to experiment with these methods while producing and completing the tasks set by Alec. I found some assignments harder than others, such as the arm ring, which is the one I struggled with the most, however I got help from my team and feedback on how to improve the movement from them.
Although I feel like there is space for a lot of improvement in my animations, I feel like I did best in this module as I felt most confident in it and have more experience working on computers, than I do with other art forms.
I felt that doing the assignments allowed me to develop a better understand of the 12 principles of animations, as I got to experiment with these methods while producing and completing the tasks set by Alec. I found some assignments harder than others, such as the arm ring, which is the one I struggled with the most, however I got help from my team and feedback on how to improve the movement from them.
Although I feel like there is space for a lot of improvement in my animations, I feel like I did best in this module as I felt most confident in it and have more experience working on computers, than I do with other art forms.