12 Principles of Animation
Earlier last week we had a rather long lecture regarding the 12 principles of animation. Although this isn't the standard amount of principles, some animators may recall there being 20 or 25, some maybe even more, it was good to note the basics and learn exactly what makes up a great animation.
I made many notes and went on afterwards to research some of the other principles that weren't mentioned in the lecture. However, here are the 12 main points that I noted:
1. Squash and Stretch - exaggeration is key to making an entertaining animation. A bouncy ball does not hit the contact point (floor) rigidly. It bounces and squashes as it hits the floor and stretches as it comes back up.
2. Anticipation - When we are about to commit to an action, say a large jump for instance, we do not just jump. We have many actions called anticipation that leads up to that big jump. This is our body getting ready for the jump. In animation, every little movement matters.
3. Staging (Mis En Scene) - This is all about telling the story. There's no need to overcompensate and we need to assume that the audience is completely unaware of what is going to happen so we need to communicate to the best of our ability. The protagonist shouldn't be upstaged by any other character - it takes our attention away from them.
4. Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose - Straight ahead shows frame after frame of animation for more lively and fast-paced scenes. Pose to Pose is meticulously planned. Key poses are drawn and the inbetweens are filled in afterwards.
Here's the next part of our 12 principles in a nutshell...
5. Follow Through and Overlapping Action: Follow through and overlapping depicts the way objects still move even after a character has stopped moving. Say for instance, a young lady in a flowing dress is running away from something and she suddenly comes to halt. Her flowing dress will not stop at the as time as her - this is called drag,
6. Slow In and Slow Out: More frames at the beginning of a sequence shows a slow in, more frames means a slower start/finish. More frames at the end means a slow out. This is all very simple really.
7. Arcs: All actions except maybe some mechanical or purposefully stiff actions create an arc. A human's arms move in a arc-like motion when walking. A pendulum also follows and arc path.
8. Secondary Action: We may understand that a character may be shocked at a particular event. However we notice that sometimes their facial expression or a secondary action gives this away. Their eyes may pop out of their head for instance. This gives the animation a more life-like feel.Secondary actions emphasise yet do not take the attention away from the character/primary action.
And finally, the last part of our 12 principles...
9. Timing: Because of our minimum of 24 frames per second that the human eye can see at without any flickering, animators work in twos. This means that to fill up 24 frames a second, which may seem tiresome, they duplicate two drawings. So rather, they are really drawing 12 frames a second!
10. Exaggeration: My personal favourite! Exaggerating may seem great for cartoon animation, but bigger and faster aren't always better and can seem very "in your face" at times. Subtle exaggeration like the movement of eyebrows to pragmatically indicate an emotion is a good example. If exaggeration is used all the time, it eventually blends in and cannot be classed as exaggeration.
11. Solid Drawing: Basic principles of weight, depth, poses, lighting and so forth all make up for good drawing skills. I often use references from other images and media when creating my own characters. Animators do exactly that so with practice, they can create life-like animation!
12. Appeal: Ever notice that even the evilest of super-villains seem appealing in some shape or form? Cruella Deville's long, slender physique (albeit horrid personality!) seems alluring in some way and good animators can even make an audience viewing the worst of characters conjure up some empathy for them!
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