Week 1: Introduction and the Principles of Animation

Week 1

Week 1 had no animating per say,  we were given an overview of the course, with some small tasks here and there, but the main takeaway I got from the week, was the principles of animation, as well as being shown some animations from the past years to give an idea of what I can achieve by working hard for the next 3 years.

Principles of Animation

1. Squash and Stretch

This is exaggerating the bounce of an object to make it more alive, the best example is using a bouncing ball, the way it squashes down and stretches with making contact with another object.

2. Anticipation

This is the communication of what is about to happen, and the thought process of the movement that goes into an action. This is the stage that sets up the action of a certain character or object and how it is about to move.

3. Staging

This is "setting the stage" like in theatre, when you are setting about the general mood of a scene or a specific character by communicating the idea through imagery to the audience

4. Straight ahead and Pose to Pose

Straight ahead animation is animation frame by frame from scratch without the use of key frames. Usually a spontaneous action which cant be mapped out, such as smoke dissipating or very exaggerated movement.

Pose to Pose is mapping out the key frames first, in order to better relate the idea of a scene through specific action,

5. Follow through and overlapping action

This essentially is the way an object or character moves after the main action has taken place. To make the action seem more believable, in that the body should not stop moving after an action has taken place.

6. Slow out - Slow in

This is the reaction of the human body of slowing down and accelerating for certain actions , this is affected buy the amount of frames in an animation, with less frames in a faster actions, and more frames for a slower action.

7. Arcs

Most actions in animation will follow an arcing  motion

8.Secondary Actions

A secondary action is an action which supports the primary action, basically an action which follows on from the main action to make the first action more realistic or exaggerated.

9. Timing

Timing, in my opinion, is the most important principle of animation, the timing of an animation could make or break a successful movement and it determines when and how the animation is going to fit together. It is helpful to use references from real life to help with the timing of an animation.

10.Exaggeration

Exaggeration is another important principle in my opinion, exaggeration is a property of animation which you often cant get in real life, making the animation bigger, faster, with broader actions, to make the animation more imposing and more visually interesting for the audience.

11. Solid drawing

It is important in any art form to make the drawings solid, this will give more life to the animation by making it clear to the audience what is being animated.

12. Appeal

The basis of any animation depends on whether the animation is visually appealing. The animation has to have colours relating to the subject matter and appealing characters which will hold the audience's attention.