During this week we began looking at 12 animation principles.
- Timing- this is how long an action is or the speed of it and how many drawings it needs. It how much time it takes for something to happen.
- Spacing- how the object is placed or moved within its frames. It can give the idea of constant movement and help to show the acceleration or deceleration of an object.
- Frame rate- Refers to frames per second. It can be 12, 24, 30 or 60.
- Animating on 1s, 2s or 3s- 1s has a new drawing on every frame such as 24 drawings in 24 frames. This gives the impression of fast, fluid and smooth motion.
- 2s has a drawing on every second frame such as having 12 drawings in 24 frames. This means that the animation will be mostly smooth but slightly choppy in faster movements.
- 3s has a drawing every 3 frames such as having 8 or 9 drawings in 24 frames. This is limited animation and may appear cheap and choppy.
The 12 principles of animation are.
- Squash and stretch- This can be used to exaggerate movements and motions. During the squash the object becomes flattened when it hits something. The stretch happens after and the object becomes elongated. This gives a sense of energy and movement.
- Anticipation- This is when something begins to prepare for an action. This is done by them beginning to go into a smaller movement to give a sense of build up for the upcoming action.
- Staging- This is clearly presenting an idea to a viewer. Only one action should be occurring at once so the audience can focus on it and not miss it.
- Straight ahead- This when a character or object is animated one frame at a time with the frames being unplanned.
- Pose to pose- Planning specific poses which are called key frames, in-betweens are then done between these key frames. These are more controlled than straight ahead.
- Follow through or overlapping action- an action that follows the main action of a character or object. The objects act at different times.
- Ease in and ease out- this is spacing frames to speed up or slow down an motion or action.
- Arcs- this is the gravity, momentum and weight of an object and where it will slow and speed up.
- Secondary action- These are actions such as gestures that add more life to a character and a sense of realism.
- Exaggeration- this is pushing a characters movements.
- Solid drawing- this is giving your character 3d form such as weight, volume and balance within their anatomy.
- Appeal- this is giving a character or object charisma and energy.
In order to practise these principles I worked on ball bouncing exercise on Krita.
I also tried working on practising the principles within posing in the image below to give the object a sense of character and energy.
krita – link to krita exercises for animation fundamentals