Arcs, Timing and Spacing

Arcs

Only the most mechanical actions follow a linear path which can work fine for animating a machine but it looks unnatural for a living creature. Most natural actions are done in a path of an arc or curve. This is especially true with humans and animals where everything from hand movements to eye movements have an arc to them. 

Importance

As an animator it's important to 'clean up' your arcs to keep them as nice flowing curves from one pose to the next to create more realistic motion. It's not uncommon for animators to use programs or sometimes even dry-erase markers on their monitors to track the arcs of different parts of a characters body such as the hips, hands, or head to ensure that they are moving in the smoothest arc possible.

Timing and Spacing

Timing and Spacing relate to how much time you put between poses. This has a great effect on how an action is understood by the audience. It can change a character's walk from someone who is slowly meandering down the road to one who is hurried or late for an appointment. 

Example

The most common example used to explain this is the head turn. Using the same head poses, a fast turn could make it seem like the character was hit in the face while a slow turn could make it seem like they are merely stretching their neck. 

Here is a lesson that was helpful to me when I was just starting to animate.

Sources

Thomas, F., & Johnston, O. (1981). The illusion of life: Disney animation. New York, NY: Walt Disney Productions.

Williams, R. (2001). The animator's survival kit. New York, NY: Faber and Faber Limited.

Goldberg, E. (2008). Character animation crash course!. Los Angeles, California: Silman-James Press.

Blair, P. (1994). Cartoon animation. Tustin, California: Walter Foster Publishing Inc.

Follow Through, Overlapping Action, and Slow In and Slow Out

Summary

Follow Through and Overlapping Action are two similar techniques that provide some additional realism to animations and create the impression that the characters are interacting with real laws of physics.

Follow Through

Follow Through is what happens at the end of and after an action, and adds resolution to the scene as a whole. Some examples would be during a baseball swing when the player continues to move the bat around their body after they hit the ball, or a soccer player that keeps their foot moving after they kick the ball. Without the ending the action loses it's strength and looks like it was effortless for the character.

Overlapping Action

Overlapping Actions are the smaller parts that supplement the main action that don't happen at the exact same time. This gives the impression that different parts of the character or clothing are separate from the main driving force of the action. A common example is the tail of an animal, the main body of the horse is the driver of the action while the tail reacts to it by dragging behind and generally starts and stops moving after the body. Nearly any part of a character can be used for overlapping action as long as it isn't the main driver for it.

Slow in and Slow Out

Slow in and Slow out is the spacing of in-between frames so that the velocity of an object isn't constant throughout. This generally means making an object spend more time at the beginning and ending of it's motion and less time in the middle so that it emphasizes the more extreme poses and creates a more appealing action. Without it the character's motion seem too linear and and mechanical.

Sources:

Williams, R. (2001). The animator's survival kit. New York, NY: Faber and Faber Limited.

Goldberg, E. (2008). Character animation crash course!. Los Angeles, California: Silman-James Press.

Blair, P. (1994). Cartoon animation. Tustin, California: Walter Foster Publishing Inc.

Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose

Summary

Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose are the two opposing methods of animation. Straight Ahead Action is the method were the animator literally starts at the first drawing and works straight ahead from one drawing to the next until the action is complete. Pose to Pose is the method of planning out and perfecting the important key poses needed to convey the idea of the animation and then going back and filling the the in-between poses.

Straight Ahead Action

Straight Ahead Action allows the animator to be extremely creative and can help add a feeling of spontaneity and freshness to the animation and can be the most effective with wild and scrambling actions. This method runs into issues in some situations when there is a strong perspective in the camera and can cause certain key poses in the animation to lose clarity and appeal. 

Pose to Pose

Pose to Pose is the most popular method for animators in the industry because it allows for a large degree of control over the action. Animations that use this method are usually easy to follow and generally avoid issues with the scene or camera placement because each major point in the action is planned out before the animator invests too much time into it. When used correctly, Pose to Pose helps the animation to have a certain clarity and strength that is difficult to achieve with Straight Ahead Action. 

My Opinion

On a personal note I would advise any beginning animators to start learning using the Pose to Pose method because it is both the most common method used in the industry and it allows the animator to make corrections to parts of the animation without undoing much of their work. I found some examples of how this method is used in modern 3D animations to plan out the scene before adding the in-between frames for a dance and for a conversation.

Source

Thomas, F., & Johnston, O. (1981). The illusion of life: Disney animation. New York, NY: Walt Disney Productions.

Staging

Origins

Staging is presenting the idea or action in such a way that makes it completely clear to the audience. It's the most general of the animation principles since it incorporates many different concepts, often from theater, in order to create something that the audience can easily understand. 

Importance

There are multiple aspects of staging that need to be considered for animation. The most important one is the 'story point' which means that every frame of the film must advance the story. Simply put, if you don't need it, don't show it. If the character is supposed to be happily running through a field of flowers don't include anything that detracts from the feeling like a graveyard in the background or a bat flying overhead. 

Another point to remember is to only show one action at a time. You don't want your action de-emphasized by a bad camera angle or other things going on in the scene. Each frame of animation should show the action in the strongest and most understandable way. You are essentially guiding the audience to look at one thing, then the next, then the next instead of showing them everything at once. 

As an animator it's important that you avoid hiding parts of the character from the audience such as having the hand move in front of the characters face or one leg hidden behind the other. Older animations had an even harder time with this since everything was in black and white. This required them to pay extra attention to the characters silhouette to avoid the hand being lost in the chest or the shoulders disappearing into the head. This limitation turned out to be a valuable learning experience though as they learned that it is always better to show an action in silhouette.

Source

Thomas, F., & Johnston, O. (1981). The illusion of life: Disney animation. New York, NY: Walt Disney Productions.

Anticipation

Origins

The second principle of animation is anticipation which is used to prepare the audience so they can follow an action before it happens. It also makes the overall animations seem more realistic. At the Disney studio Walt Disney was particularly insistent that the actions were easily understood by the audience so that they could anticipate what the character would do. He called this technique aiming and was known for acting out scenes himself for the animators.

Importance

The importance of anticipation is clear when it's missing from an action. Just imagine a baseball pitcher not winding up before the pitch or a soccer player not pulling his foot back before the kick. It takes the energy and effort out of the action, leaving the audience confused about what happened and how the character managed to do it.

Examples

Some examples of anticipation that is often used in animation would be a character crouching down before they jump or tilting back before they push a heavy object.

Source

Thomas, F., & Johnston, O. (1981). The illusion of life: Disney animation. New York, NY: Walt Disney Productions.

Squash and Stretch

Origins

Squash and Stretch is the first most important of the principles of animation. It's what gives characters a fleshy organic look while lack of squash and stretch is what makes hard objects like a metal bat a rigid look. Squash and Stretch was originally discovered in the 1930s by Disney animators who were trying to bring more life into their drawings. They found that living objects tended to change shape while retaining volume and that only lifeless stiff objects stayed rigid while in motion. After discovering this Disney animators started to compete with each other to exaggerate the squash and stretch in their drawings to create more and more extreme poses. 

Examples

There are two common examples used to explain squash and stretch to beginning animators, the half-filled flour sack and the bouncing ball.

The half-filled flour sack was created to practice changing an objects shape to show emotions while keeping the volume the same. What was learned from the flour sack  exercises could then be applied to characters in Disney animations.

The bouncing ball is a common animation for beginners for a variety of reasons, one is to provide a simple scenario to use squash and stretch. It was surprising for Disney animators when they discovered that having a ball squash when it lands and stretch when it takes off would make such a huge impact on their animations.

Sources

Thomas, F., & Johnston, O. (1981). The illusion of life: Disney animation. New York, NY: Walt Disney Productions.

Williams, R. (2001). The animator's survival kit. New York, NY: Faber and Faber Limited.

Goldberg, E. (2008). Character animation crash course!. Los Angeles, California: Silman-James Press.

Blair, P. (1994). Cartoon animation. Tustin, California: Walter Foster Publishing Inc.