Princibles of Animation

The twelve principles of animation were created as simple guidelines for new animator to make the job of animating more simplified.

Principle 1) Squash and Streach
While in real life object such as a basket ball do not squash down to a pancake within animation it helps convey moment and character giving the animation more moment, life and character.

Principle 2) Anticipation
This principle prepares a character for a future action, for example if a character were to jump, they would bend down first to be able to jump up high, it wouldn't be logical for someone to jump without any build up.


Principle 3) Staging
Placement of character and frame can have a huge impact on the mood and meaning in a shot, the way a character is presented can tell a lot about them how they are first introduced this is a way of complementing the character and what mood you want to set within the scene.


Principle 4) Straight ahead and pose to pose
Pose to pose is a very helpful technique as it helps reduce the room for error and drastic style change within a scene, it evolves drawing the base poses of a scene then animating the in between, it is a useful process for new and old animators as it makes character consistency much easier. Straight ahead is more tricky, it evolves animating frame by frame without working between frames, only going to the next frame then the next creating motion, however the problem with this is that it is easy to mess up, for example at the start of a scene your character has short arms by the end they might end up having long arms.

Principle 5) Follow though and overlapping action
When animating it is important to take the weight and mass of a character or object into account, a human who is running wont just stop suddenly they will slow down, skid or some other motion to decrease energy of movement, this principle helps the character in become more realistic more lively and believable as a person who is there living and breathing.

Principle 6) Ease in, Ease out
In animation the more frames you have within a scene means the slower the movement of a character is, on the flip side the lesser frames within a scene gives the illusion that a character is moving fast, to give the illusion of fast movement fewer frames are created withing the center or middle of an action that is performed.

Principle 7) Moving in a Circular Path
This principle helps the flow of movement withing a frame making a character look more natural

Principle 8) Secondary action
Secondary action is focusing on something such as a tail or hair, this is something that is not focused on while the main body of the animation is in progress, the secondary action is a followup of a big action, for example a jump the main body will jump and the hair, the secondary action will follow after the main action.

Principle 9) Timing
Timing is figuring out how many frames are needed for a certain actions or within a scene. The more complicated a scene and the more faster means fewer frames while a slow moving scene will require more frames

Principle 10) Exaggeration
Exaggeration help create lively and fun characters, it takes something and pushes it close to the edge to create clear and at times comedic scenes. It also takes an important role in storytelling emotions and actions drive a story not dialog alone.

Principle 11) Solid Drawing
When animating a character it is important even for a two dimensional character to be proportionally accurate, it gives the character visual depth, and make the world they are in more believable

Principle 12) Appeal
To have a successful animation you need to create a character that will tug at your audiences interest a character that the audience will admire, connect to or find intriguing. If you have a character with no traits the film will simply be bland and fail to draw peoples attention.