Research of 12 principles of animation:
Briefly, 12 priciples of animation is:
- Squash and stretch
- Anticipation
- Staging
- Straight-ahead action and pose-to-pose
- Follow through and overlapping action
- Slow in and slow out
- Arc
- Secondary action
- Timing
- Exaggeration
- Solid drawing
- Appeal
Squash and stretch
Squash and stretch is a good way to emphasize charactors or objects’ weight, mass or speed. Squash and stretch can make objects look softer. Some tips may help to make a better squash & stretch results:
- Keep the volume. Remember to stretch one direction of the shape when the other direction has been squashed. Always keep the volume the same.
- Do not always use squash and stretch. Squash and stretch should be used only when people need it.
Anticipation
Anticipation means that charactors should prepare before they make actions. This method can make actions more realistic. What’s more, anticipation can help audience realize what will happen next.
Anticipation can be simple or more complex. Mutiple-anticipations is needed when actions quite complicted.
Staging
Staging is the presentation of any idea so that it is completely and unmistakablly clear.
Staging can be applied to acting, timing, camera and settings.
- Acting: Acting should be designed properly to lead audience to watch. A messy acting will be terrible.
- Timing: The rhythm of an animation is also important. Give audience time to think or realize what is happening.
- Camera: Use far away camera to show charactor’s big actions and use close-up to show their expressions.
- Setting: A better setting can show clearer charactor’s personalities.
Straight-ahead action and pose-to-pose
Straight-ahead & Pose-to-pose are two common methods of making animations. Straight-ahead means that animators draw/keyframe animations from start to finish. Pose-to-pose means that animators firstly draw/keyframe most important parts of animations and then come back to fill in the other parts of it. Frankly, both of them has pros and cons:
Straight-ahead:
- Pros: smoother action,
- Cons: terrible timing, hard to control, size of charactors may change
Straight-ahead should be used in some unpredictable actions like fire, particles, explosions or overlapping actions.
Pose-to-pose:
- Pros: better control, better timing, prevent size change of charactors
- Cons: hard to make unpredictable actions
Pose-to-pose should be used in some predictable actions like charactor animation. There are some special terms for pose-to-pose animation. The most important frames in animation called Keys, the second important part called Extremes, the third important part called Breakdowns.
Straight-ahead & Pose-to-pose should be used based on what animations need. A combination of straight-ahead & pose-to-pose workflow is the best.
Follow through and overlapping action
Follow through refers to the way parts of the body continue to move after the body is stopped. Overlapping refers to the offset between the timing of the main body and its other parts. Both of them make animation more realistic and more interesting.
Mostly, the part of the body should follow the action of main body. For example, hand should follow arm and hair should follow head.
Slow in and slow out
Slow in and slow out is that actions should start slowly and end slowly as well, which can make actions more realistc. Slow in and slow out should be used base on different situations. Do not use them everytime.
In 3D animations, slow in and slow out can be easily achieved by changing the tangent of curves in animation viewport.
Arc
Arc means that moving things in circular paths. Mostly living creatures moving in circular paths, only machanical things moving in lines. A straight arc gives the movement more power.
Arc can also represent objects’ weights or other physics. For example, different circle movement of arms can should dfferent weights of the ball that charactor is holding.
Arc can also prevent animators from making some common mistakes like accidentally cut the length of objects.
Secondary action
Secondary action refers to gestures that support the main action to add more dimension to the charactor animation. Secondary actions can make the whole actions more interesting and add more personalities to the charactor.
However, secondary actions should not overlapping the main actions. Also, don let it go unnoticed. People shouldd give audience enough time to notice secondary actions.
Timing
Timing states that the personality and nature of an animation is greatly affected by the number of frames inserted between each main action. With more drawings/keyframes the action will become slower. One action can have different meanings when the timing is quite different. Sometimes less drawing/keyframes can make the action smoother.
Exaggeration
Exaggeration is one of the most common parts of animation, which can make animation looks more powerful and interesting. Exaggeration does not mean more distored, but mroe convincing.
When making fast animation, bigger exaggeration can make the animation looks better.
Remember to do exaggeration more and more until it is enough, then go back to adjust it.
Solid drawing
Solid Drawing refers to the use of the basic principles of drawing form, weight and volume to create the illusion of a 3d object. Some tips may help to make a better soild drwing:
- Do not make pose symmetrical. Symmetrical poses are bad for animation, which looks unnatural and boring.
- Using perspective. Perspective can help animators to check whether their charactors fit in the 3D environment properly.
- Avoid symmetrical lines. For 2d artists, do not use symmetrial lines to draw things. Draw things more three-dementional.
Appeal
Appeal means that animators should keep their charactors outlooking interesting, for both heros and evil charactors. Appealing does not mean good-looking but impressive. Some tips may help charactors looks more appealing:
- Use variety of Shapes. Use same shapes to design charactors can make them quite boring. Instead, using clear and variety of shapes bring them more personalities.
- Edit Proportion. Editing proportions can enlarge the adventages of charactors and make up the disadventages. Magnify things that looks interesting and shrink ugly or boring things.
- Keep simple design. To much complex details is not good for an animation charactor. Keeping it simple may gives audience a better first impression.