zara.grainger
Principles of Animation
^^^^^A very cute video listing the principles.
The twelve principles of animation describe the elements that a good animation will feature. They explain a better understanding of realistic movement and show a good grasp of viewer perception and how to manipulate the scene to convey what the animation is designed to show. The principles began to be understood in the 1930s, when Disney began classes for their animators to improve the quality of animation. These encouraged reference from nature, their animation techniques eventually became the principles. The principles were outlined by Thomas and Johnston in the book 'Illusion of Life' published in 1981.
Knowing the principles isn't the important part, understanding how to use them to your advantage however is the key to success full animation. These help to give you the illusion of life.
Anticipation, and squash and stretch in a strange way see to defy logic and maintain it. Because we expect to see actions having equal and opposite reaction and we know that objects don't loose mass so
it seems intuitive to have build-up to action and for objects to squash and stretch becoming larger in one dimension as they shrink in another. However from an animating point of view it feels like it defies logic creating unnatural shapes and positions in order to create a more appealing appearence. However I would expect it to become a simple habit to include these after you've been in the industry some time.
Staging, timing and straight ahead and pose to pose are all basically about how you choose to make your animation appear and all reflect the important idea of planning ahead.
Solid drawing skills and appealing animations are obvious advantages, discovering how to make animations more appealing can just be a simple matter of research and awareness of things like the Uncanny Valley.
Exaggeration is used to as a method to make things more appealing, it also ties into anticipation and squash and stretch, if animations were only as interesting as real life then we wouldn't watch them, they also already have the problem of being separated from us and so in order to have a strong impact they need to be exaggerated, this effects content and visual style.
Arcs, and Slow in and slow out are ways of making an animation appear more appealing.
Secondary Action - A drama teacher of mine used to tell a story of a play he was in once. While the main love interest had some important dialog on the front stage, he was told to keep himself busy in the background. The director didn't tell him what he wanted him to do, so he decided that his character had found a piece of string and was playing with it. He thought everything had gone fine until the director came shouting at him during the intercession. Apparently the audience had been completely distracted during the scene by him and his piece of string and that they were all talking about it and the possible meaning and metaphor, the significance of the string, he had accidently been too interesting when he intended on simply been fiddling and keeping busy. The director wanted to add another dimension to the scene to make it more dynamic, similarly we can do this in our animations. But we should always remember that the purpose of it should be to enhance, not take away from the shot, that it should complement and add making for a more interesting piece of animation.
Principles of Animation
^^^^^A very cute video listing the principles.
The twelve principles of animation describe the elements that a good animation will feature. They explain a better understanding of realistic movement and show a good grasp of viewer perception and how to manipulate the scene to convey what the animation is designed to show. The principles began to be understood in the 1930s, when Disney began classes for their animators to improve the quality of animation. These encouraged reference from nature, their animation techniques eventually became the principles. The principles were outlined by Thomas and Johnston in the book 'Illusion of Life' published in 1981.
Knowing the principles isn't the important part, understanding how to use them to your advantage however is the key to success full animation. These help to give you the illusion of life.
Anticipation, and squash and stretch in a strange way see to defy logic and maintain it. Because we expect to see actions having equal and opposite reaction and we know that objects don't loose mass so
it seems intuitive to have build-up to action and for objects to squash and stretch becoming larger in one dimension as they shrink in another. However from an animating point of view it feels like it defies logic creating unnatural shapes and positions in order to create a more appealing appearence. However I would expect it to become a simple habit to include these after you've been in the industry some time.
Staging, timing and straight ahead and pose to pose are all basically about how you choose to make your animation appear and all reflect the important idea of planning ahead.
Solid drawing skills and appealing animations are obvious advantages, discovering how to make animations more appealing can just be a simple matter of research and awareness of things like the Uncanny Valley.
Exaggeration is used to as a method to make things more appealing, it also ties into anticipation and squash and stretch, if animations were only as interesting as real life then we wouldn't watch them, they also already have the problem of being separated from us and so in order to have a strong impact they need to be exaggerated, this effects content and visual style.
Arcs, and Slow in and slow out are ways of making an animation appear more appealing.
Secondary Action - A drama teacher of mine used to tell a story of a play he was in once. While the main love interest had some important dialog on the front stage, he was told to keep himself busy in the background. The director didn't tell him what he wanted him to do, so he decided that his character had found a piece of string and was playing with it. He thought everything had gone fine until the director came shouting at him during the intercession. Apparently the audience had been completely distracted during the scene by him and his piece of string and that they were all talking about it and the possible meaning and metaphor, the significance of the string, he had accidently been too interesting when he intended on simply been fiddling and keeping busy. The director wanted to add another dimension to the scene to make it more dynamic, similarly we can do this in our animations. But we should always remember that the purpose of it should be to enhance, not take away from the shot, that it should complement and add making for a more interesting piece of animation.