12 Principles of Animation

1. Squash & Stretch

Squash & stretch is a technique which gives weight to an object by squashing or stretching its shape

An example of Squash & Stretch is a bouncing rubber ball.

2. Anticipation

Anticipation is a technique where a characters objective is telegraphed by their movements.

An example of Anticipation is a person pulling their arm back before throwing a punch.

3. Staging

Staging is a process of making the scene (all the elements in an animation) arranged in a way which makes the focus of the shot clear.

An example of good staging is making the main character in the center of the screen or on a third.

4. Pose to Pose and Straight Ahead

Pose to Pose is a technique that uses keyframes of the extremities of the animation and then filling in the frames inbetween to create a more coherent animation.

Straight ahead is a technique where you draw each frame sequentially, which can lead to more dynamic animation

5. Follow Through and Overlapping Actions

The technique of exaggerating the reaction to a movement or action.

A example of this is a car titling as it brakes sharply.

6. Easing

The technique of showing acceleration and deceleration to make more realistic movements

A example of this is a accelerating car.

7. Arcs

The technique of making movements more natural by using arcs rather than straight movement.

An example of this is someone moving their arms.

8. Secondary Action

The technique of adding actions to a character that support and highlight its main action.

An example of this technique is a character licking their lips before eating.

9. Timing

The technique of altering how many frames are spent on an action to make the action mean different things.

For example, a slow head nod makes it seem unsure while a fast head nod makes them seem excit

10. Exaggeration

The technique of making characters have personality by adding more weight to movements.

For example, to make an object seem heavy, the character can struggle to pick it up, exaggerating their lack of strength.

11. Solid Drawing

Do not ignore 3D volume and shape in a character, keep it consistent and flowing.

An example of this is drawing a character in many different perspectives.

12. Appeal

The technique of making characters look visually appealing and have shapes that reflect their personality

An example of this using simple shapes to make a character more appealing

Traditional/hand drawn

The first film using traditional animation is fantasmagorie, using negative film. Disney then pioneered the use of Cel animation, using background and character cels overlapping making it easier to animate.

Frames are draw individually (usually on cels), with backgrounds being drawn separately and then put behind the frames. A multi-plane camera is then used to layer cels on top of each other.

One advantage of hand drawn is it’s unique style, which can really make characters come to life. One disadvantage is how time-consuming this method is, as each frame may be individually painted as well.

Stop Motion

Stop motion animation was often used for VFX in movies in the 1920’s to 1970’s. A popular example of this is jason and the argonauts. It was focused more to animation during the 80’s when aardman popularised it with characters such as morph and wallace and gromit.

A character is made (often out of plasticine, but other materials can be used) and a camera is used to take a frame and then the character does something and the frame is taken again etc.

One advantage of stop motion animation is it’s low cost, as the materials required are inexpensive and plentiful. One disadvantage is it’s extremely time consuming, as the models and sets have to be made to scale with rigged characters and good lighting.

3D/CGI Animation

The first use of CGI was in 1972 , when a model of a hand was digitised and animated. On of the fist major uses of cgi was the movie tron. The first completely CGI film was toy story.

A model is made out of polygons and rigged, where it can be animated. The set and everything inside is made out of polygons.

One advantage is how efficient it is compared to frame animation. One disadvantage is the high cost of 3D animation and modelling software.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse