Week 1: twelve principles of animation and Bouncing ball

Twelve principles of animation

Disney’s twelve basic principles of animation were introduced by the Disney animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas in their 1981 book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation.

In order, they consist of:

• Squash and stretch
• Anticipation
• Staging
• Straight ahead action and pose to pose
• Follow through and overlapping action
• Slow in and slow out
• Arc
• Secondary action
• Timing
• Exaggeration
• Solid drawing
• Appeal

1) Squash and stretch

Squash and stretch is the most fundamental principle. The purpose of squash and stretch is to give a sense of weight and flexibility to drawn objects. However, the most important aspect of this principle is that the volume of object doesn’t change when squash and stretch.

2) Anticipation

Anticipation is used to prepare the audience for the action, and to make the action appear more realistic.

3) Staging

Staging directs the audience’s attention toward the most important elements in a scene in a way that effectively advances the story. This can be done by various means, such as the placement of a character in the frame, the use of light and shadow, or the angle and position of the camera.

4) Straight ahead action and pose to pose

Straight ahead action is animated frame by frame from beginning to end, while pose to pose starts with drawing a few key frames, and then filling in the frames in-between. Straight head action is easy to create a fluid movement, however, it’s hard to figure out exact poses along the way. Pose to pose gives animators more control over the action.

5) Follow through and overlapping action

Follow through and overlapping is a performance of laws of physics, especially the principle of inertia. When a moving object such as a person comes to a stop, the loose part might continue to move in the same direction because of the force of forward momentum, such as hair, clothing etc.

6) Slow in and slow out

The movement of objects in the real world, such as the human body, animals, vehicles, etc. needs time to accelerate and slow down.

7) Arc

Life doesn’t move in straight lines, and neither should animation. Most natural action tends to follow an arched trajectory, and animation should adhere to this principle by following implied “arcs” for greater realism.

8) Secondary action

Secondary action is gesture that support main action to add more dimension to character animation. Secondary action is able to give more personality and insight to what the character is doing or thinking about.

9) Timing

Timing is about where on a timeline you put each frame of action. Take the bouncing ball as an example, the ball is slowing down as it gets close to the peak of the bounce, and the spacing between ball ghost is narrowing. As the ball falls from its peak and accelerates, the spacing starts becoming wider.

10) Exaggeration

Exaggeration presents a character’s features and actions in an extreme form for comedic or dramatic effect, it is a great way to increase the appeal of a character, and enhance the storytelling.

11) Solid drawing

The principle of solid drawing means taking into account forms in three-dimensional space, or giving them volume and weight.

12) Appeal

People remember real, interesting, and engaging characters. Animated characters should be pleasing to look at and have a charismatic aspect to them.

Bouncing ball

This week, our task is to create two animations, bouncing ball and ball bounce maze.

animation 1

I put the ball on the height of 10 on the y axis at the beginning. The ball falls and hits the ground after 12 frames. Due to momentum loss, the ball is unable to bounce to the height of 10, I set it as 8. Due to the decrease of the height, the second fall finishes within 10 frames and so on. So, the height is going to be 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, 1, 0.5, 0. And the frames of each fall process is going to be 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, 1.