12 Principles of Animation One Should Know

As an animator, you need to master the 12 Principles of Animation. The principles were originally designed for pencil sketches, but they also apply to digital animation. These principles should be your ultimate guide to creating realistic and appealing character animations.

1. Timing and spacing

In animation, the timing and spacing are what give objects and characters an illusion of movement within the laws of physics. The number of frames that separate two poses or the speed at which an action is performed are considered timing. The timing can be used to establish personality, mood, and emotion.

The spacing refers to the placement of each frame. If the spacing is tight, the ball will move slower. The ball will move faster if the spacing is wider.

2. Squash and Stretch

The flexibility of objects is due to the combination of squash and stretch. To understand squash and stretch, look at a ball that is bouncing. The ball will start to stretch as it starts to fall, and speed up. Squash and Stretch can be used in a variety of areas to enhance the appeal or add comical effects, such as when someone blinks or gets scared.

3. Anticipation

In animation, anticipation is used to prepare the audience for an action about to take place. It is also required to create believable movements.

To understand this, imagine a baseball pitcher who must first move his entire body backwards and then throw the ball. If an animated character needs to go forward, then they must first move back. If a character reaches for a drink on a table they have to first move back. It not only increases their energy, but also lets the audience know that this character is about to move. Another example of anticipation is when a person is about to arrive and a character is looking off-screen. If graphics is something that amazes you, join graphic design courses in Anand and work with the best designers.

4. Easy in and Easy out

Acceleration and deceleration are necessary when an object is moving or stopping. If you don’t ease in and out (or slow down and speed up), your movements will become unnatural.

As a character gets up from a seated position, they will space the poses closer together to ease them into the movement. They will then ease into the movement as they stand by separating the poses at the end. This acceleration and deceleration would make everything very abrupt.

5. Follow through and overlapping action

The idea of follow through is that different parts of the body continue to move after the character comes to a halt. When a character stops walking, their arms might continue to move forward before they settle in a down position. It could be the same with clothing.

The overlapping action, also known as “drag”, “lead-and-follow”, or “overlap”, is similar to the “overlap” in that different parts of your body move at different speeds. When a character waves their arm, the shoulder moves first, followed by the arm and elbow. The hand will lag behind a few frames. This can be seen when a blade flies in the breeze. The grass moves at a slower rate than the base, which gives it a wave-like motion.

6. Arcs

In real life, everything moves in an arcing motion. This is because people don’t move in straight lines. You should follow this principle to get smooth and realistic animations. The faster something moves, then the flatter the curve and the wider the turn. Robots are the only thing that can move in a straight line.

When a character turns his head, his head will be lowered during the turn in order to create arcing motion. Also, you want to make sure that subtler things are also curved. When a character is walking, the toe tips should also move in an arcing, rounded motion. Animation courses in Anand from top institutions offer advanced training.

7. Exaggeration

Exaggeration can be used to increase the appeal of a movement and push it further. It should always be done to some extent.

You can use exaggeration to create cartoonish movements, including physical changes or supernatural elements. Exaggeration may be used with more restraint to create more realistic movements. Even then, you can use exaggeration in order to create a more fun or readable movement while staying true to reality.

8. Solid Drawing

Solid drawing is the art of creating an accurate drawing that accurately depicts volume, weight, balance, shade, and anatomy. Avoid “twinning,” where you create a mirror pose on the other side. (Both hands in pockets or both arms on hips) This is a boring and unappealing position.

9. Call

It is possible to add more charisma (appeal) in different areas of animation. For example, posing. Character design is the most obvious case. You want a character the audience can relate to or connect to.

10. Straight Ahead Action with Pose-to-Pose

Straight forward action is an animated style that is very spontaneous, linear and is animated frame by frame. Pose to pose is a more methodical animation, which only uses the most essential poses to tell the story. . It is great for dramatic or emotional scenes that require a slow pace.

11. Secondary Action

Secondary action is the action that supports or highlights the main action in order to give the animation more life and to create a convincing performance. Remember that secondary actions should be subtle and not distract from the main action. If they were both talking, the primary action would be. But if someone started tapping their foot, the secondary action would be.