Research

Subject Specialism Research – Animation

In animation there are what’s known as the twelve principles of animation. These are the building blocks of all animation and the more accurately an animator can portray these principles, the better their animation will be.

Not every principle has to be used in every scene of an animation but they do need to be kept in mind when animation so that should a situation arise where they can be implemented, they can be. These principles are predominantly used in 2D animation but are still very important in 3D animation so I will be sure to study and learn to use as many of these principles as I can.

Squash and Stretch

Squash and stretch is the process of elongating the dimensions of your objects to better show the speed, momentum, weight and mass of whatever has been animated.

The amount something squashes and stretches shows how heavy or how fast something is moving. One example of this would be if you were to animate a ball bouncing, if the ball squashed and stretched a lot it would mean the ball is moving fast and is made of a fairly soft material such as rubber, whereas if the ball didn’t change in shape much it would be much more akin to a bowling ball trying to bounce.

One of the most important things to consider when using this technique is that the overall volume of the animation focus must stay consistent. If the volume changes whilst animating then the object will look distorted and ruin the look of the animation.

Anticipation

This is the action a character or object takes before doing the main action to give the audience enough time to process what’s happening. This can be a person pulling their arm back for a punch or a superhero crouching slightly before flying away.

Anticipation is what allows the audience to be aware of what action is coming next. It’s a very subtle change but without it, motions look weak and lifeless and often makes the brain think the motion came from nowhere. This can sometimes be used to completely misdirect the viewer and all the anticipation gets focused on one area and then the animator makes an action appear in another location.

Staging

Staging is the presentation of an idea so that there is no mistake as to what the focus and objective is. This principle is very broad as it applies to so many different areas of animation. It can apply to the camera angle and position, the acting in a scene, timing and setting as well as many more.

When animating, you want to have full control of where the audience is looking. This level of control is achieved through staging. The scene works with itself to flow smoothly and let the viewer take in what you want them to take in. If the staging is performed incorrectly, characters and objects would compete for stage presence and the viewer wouldn’t know where or what to look at.

The camera is a good way to control the staging of a scene. Any action should take place in either the centre or following the rule of thirds. Another example is that if a character is looking in a direction, there should be more screen space in the direction their facing except in a few situations where they are no longer the main focus of the shot.

Emotions of the characters should be emphasized to allow the viewer to fully comprehend this. If a character is sad, they should be animated to look sadder with subtle environmental changes or in the way that they walk. Environments should be exaggerated to ensure the viewer can see what state the area should be in.

Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose

These terms refer to the two main methods of animation. Straight ahead is when you animate each frame sequentially until you finish, in layman’s terms it’s animating as you go. Pose to pose is when you draw the first and last frame of a sequence and add in key frames in the centre of the two, then again and again until the animation is complete.

Pose to pose is usually preferred for most actions as you can get a good idea of how the animation will look from very early in the animation process. This allows you to alleviate the worry of whether or not the character is going to end up in the right place, whether you have enough frames and being sure that there is no misplaced frames. A problem with straight ahead is that if you finish your animation and notice a large mistake, you would have to go back and alter a lot of frames to fix the issue.

There are three key vocabularies to use in pose to pose that are ‘keys’, ‘extremes’ and ‘breakdowns’. They keys come first and are the start and end frames which should be made and perfected first. Extremes are then used to decide the further the action will move in each direction. Finally, breakdown poses are put in between the extremes to connect them. Once all this is done, the inbetweening can begin.

Straight ahead works well for any motions that are unpredictable or motions that are more organic. Some examples of animations that work well though straight ahead are fire, smoke and water. Another good method that uses straight ahead is for overlapping action. The main body of the animation could be made with pose to pose and once complete, you could go back and animation things like hair, tails or clothes with straight ahead to give it a more organic look.

Follow Through, Overlapping Action and Drag

These three describe the same action but different aspects of it. Follow through refers to the way parts of the body continue to move after the main body has stopped. Overlapping action refers to the offset of timing between the main body and any other parts. Drag refers to the technique of delaying the movement between the main body and any appendages.

These aspects add a high level of realism to an animation. When the main body of an animation moves, the tips of any appendages should be the last thing to catch up with the motion as well as continuing slightly after catching up before resetting to the same position as the main body.

Similarly to squash and stretch, the amount an object drags and follow through an action does tells a lot about its weight. Even if it were just a line being animated, if it were to snap forward and back it would be akin to an antenna whereas if it were to fall behind and flick over forward after the main body stops would be more similar to a feather.

Slow In and Slow Out

This refers to the way that nearly all actions start off slow, build momentum and speed and then slow down again as the action finishes. There are very few times when things move at a constant speed and usually it’s because the action is performed by something mechanical like a robot.

A good way to ensure the animation looks smooth is to create the keys at either end of the animation as well as one extreme in the middle of these two. Breakdowns would then be added only towards the outer realms of the sequence until you’re happy with the animation.

Slow in and slow out shouldn’t be used for every motion however as it is just unrealistic or non-feasible to do so. A bouncing ball wouldn’t slow out as it drops but would when it bounces up and a bullet wouldn’t slow in when fired from a gun but the gun itself would slow in and slow out after firing from the recoil.

A good way to fix a choppy animation is to analyse the distance between frames. Each frame should be consistent, with motions closer together at the beginning and end of each action, and motions farther apart in the middle.