I have decided before starting this task to refresh my mind with the twelve principles of animation as it has been a long summer and I'd like to have them fresh in my mind before cracking on.
1. Squash and Stretch
Squash and stretch provides life to movement in animation, it gages an object or characters material or weight and really brings it to life. The important thing to remember with this principle is that the volume shouldn't change. Unless it's supposed to.
2. Anticipation
Anticipation is key in building narrative, by taking a pause before an action the viewer is prepared to what is about to happen and it provides a flow and a pace to the animation.
3. Arcs
To make movement look more natural, limbs and both animal and human movement should follow a parabolic line. It's the same with bouncing balls. By following the arc principle movement is made to look more natural. Remember mechanical movement does not follow this principle generally to look robotic it follows a straight line.
4. Staging
Staging is a term taken from theater and although you must follow the rules of composition like in photography to have a visually pleasing piece of work it is important to note that this principle is more important than this. It also concerns itself with entering on and off screen and the movement of characters in a 3D way to composition in photography.
5. Straight Ahead // Pose to Pose
The difference in technique of animating. So pose to pose is planning all the keyframes in advance whereas straight ahead animation is just going with the follow. I personally like to combine the two, plan a few key frames but just go with it at the same time.
6. Follow Through & Overlapping
Follow Through action is best described using an example so if a girl jumps and she has long swishy hair the follow through action would be her hair going up and not falling down when the girl falls down but being a few moments behind the primary action.
7. Exaggeration
Exaggeration is essential in animation as animation cass push the barriers and extend the limits of live film otherwise it would just be live film. Like painting is to photography the art of exaggeration is a major part of the animation. You have to push the limits without going too far.
8. Appeal
The likeability of a character, also similar to charisma in an actor. Whether a character is likeable or dislikeable it's still classed as appeal. Characters needs to be fascinating and interesting.
9. Secondary Action
Secondary action is similar but different to follow through action, it's the little actions that emphasise the primary action so they happen at the same time. Such as a person's arms swinging when they walk.
10. Slow in, Slow Out
This principle covers the acceleration and deceleration of a movement. This emphasises the focal point of the movement and adds to the perfection of the timing.
11. Timing
The timing principle can be taken in several ways, so the timing could be the pace of the piece, how many frames per second etc. Or it could be the timing of the narrative. You could pick up on the timing of certain movements. It really takes a lot of analysis to perfect this principle to make sure all the timings are right.
12. Solid Drawing
Solid Drawing is the principle that most effects the composition of the piece, by applying and looking deeply into the solid drawing principle you are analysing the 3D space, making sure that volume and weight is applied to give it some reality.
A lot of these principles overlap so it's important to not focus on any one but try and meld them together, as a team collaboration of principles.
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