12 Principles of animation

The Twelve Basic Principles of Animation are a set of principles of animation which where introduced by two Disney animators, Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas.

 

1 - Timing and Spacing

Timing means the number of frames or drawings for an action, which is responsible to the speed of the animation. Correct timing make characters and objects move in a realistic way. An example of this, is using weights to show movements like picking some up or pushing an object. Timing is also very important for creating and showing different moods as well as emotions. Timing can show many things within an animation and is considered one of the most important.

 

2 - Anticipation

Anticipation is preparing the audience for an certain action on your animation it also impacts the visual appearance to create a more realistic look. A good example of this is someone wanting to jump high, the character will pause and bend the legs before jumping. This draws attention to what is about to happen next.

 

3 - Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose

Straight ahead action and Pose to Pose are Two different approaches to the drawing process. Straight ahead action is drawing out a scene which is done frame by frame from its start to finish, while the second one Pose to Pose involves starting with the drawing on the necessary key frames, and then going back over and filling in the gaps later on. Straight ahead action seems to create a more smooth as well as a dynamic look to the movement, this means it is better for creating realistic animations. Pose to Pose is more used for emotional scenes. It is not rare that these two techniques would be used together.

 

4 - Arcs

Most normal and natural actions always follow an arch, all realistic animation should follow this principle by following arcs for greater sense realism. An example could be a sneaky walk and arcing the characters back. There is only one good exception, this is mechanical movement. This normally moves in straight lines.

 

5 - Follow through and Overlapping

Follow through and overlapping is two closely related techniques which help to render different movements a lot more realistically. Follow through means that loosely tied parts of a body should continue moving after the character has stopped. Overlapping action is the tendency for parts of the body to move at different speeds and rates, this means that a body part will move at different times than others.

 

6 - Staging

Staging as it is known in theatre and film is to direct attention, and show what the clear and greatest importance is. There are many different ways that it can be shown by many different ways, like the placement of a character in the scene. The different usage of lights and shadows as well as the camera will show what is the focus of the scene.

 

7 - Slow In and Slow Out

A characters animation needs time to accelerate and slow down. This principle of animation makes the animation look more realistic. By adding more frames at the beginning and end of an animation this expresses the moving poses with fewer frames in the middle. An example of this is starting to run and stop running but also can effect objects like balls bouncing on the floor.

 

8 - Secondary Action

Adding more to the main animation gives more life to the scene. Some examples of this is facial animation as well as a character walking and swinging his arms. This can help the main animation however not take focus away from it. Depending on the scene depends on the secondary needed. Another example is facial animation during a dramatic scene.

 

9 - Exaggeration

Exaggeration is a very useful effect especially for animation. Exaggeration the movement makes the animation a lot more appealing to the viewer. There are different levels of exaggeration, the level of exaggeration can depend on if there is a certain aim like realism or a certain style. There is a classic definition which was to remain true to reality, however it is just showing it in a more extreme form. If a scene contains many different aspects, there should be a good balance in how the elements are exaggerated.

 

10 - Squash and Stretch

Squash and Stretch, give a sense of weights and flexibility to drawn objects. It can be applied to simple objects, like a bouncing ball, or something a little more complex, like a body or human face. The squash and Stretch can be exaggerated to a certain extent depending on the type of realism or style. The most important aspect is the fact that object's volume does not change when squashed or stretched.

 

11 - Solid Drawing

Solid drawing means taking into account forms in three-dimensional space, giving them volume and weight. The animator has to understand the basics of 3D shapes as well as anatomy, weight, balance, light and shadow and others. For a classical animator, this involved taking art classes and producing sketches from life. Modern-day computer animators draw less because of what computers can offer them, however their work can benefit greatly from a basic understanding of the animation principles, and what is to offer to basic computer animation.

 

12 - Appeal

Appeal is for a cartoon character where it could be called charisma in an actor. A character who is appealing is not necessarily a good guy as villains and monsters can also be appealing. the important thing is that the viewer feels the character is real and interesting when watching. There is many ways for making a character come across better with the audience. A more pleasing character can have a symmetrical or baby-like face which thens to appeal more, when a more complicated or hard to read face will drop on its appeal.

 

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