Principles 1/4

Moving onto the next phase, creating the animation cycles. Time management will be very important, target is one animation per week.

12 Principles of Animation taken from my earlier blog post.

1. Squash and Stretch. Provides realism to movements. Must retain the original volume when transforming the shapes.
2. Anticipation. Gives the audience clues as to what will happen next, lengthens movements. ie a backswing on a punch. Multiple levels of anticipation creates more complex looking movements.
3. Staging. Presentation of a clear, unmistakable idea. Planning the scene to control where the audience focus will be throughout. Exaggeration of features to ensure the feel of the sequence is obvious.
4. Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose. Two methods to animate images. Straight ahead is animating in sequence as you go. Pose to Pose is creating the beginning image, end image, and then going back through and filling in the gaps. P2P gives more control over the finished sequence. Straight ahead is good for unpredictable animations, eg fire, water. P2P has Keys - beginning and end images, Extremes - the furtherest out the movements will go, Breakdowns - the inbetweens.
5. Follow Through and Overlapping Action(drag). Follow through is the ending of a movement, overlapping action is the "repeat" at the end of a movement. Drag helps distinguish between flexible and rigid objects.
6. Slow In and Slow Out. Extending the beginning and ending of a movement to achieve realism. 
7. Arcs. Adjusting movements on the y axis to remove the mechanical feel of a movement. A smear can emphasise movement with less frames.
8. Secondary Action. Gestures that support the main action. They compliment the main action without drawing the focus away from it. Conveys personality.
9. Timing. The number of frames changes the feel of a sequence. Drawing on twos(two frames per image) gives a smoother movement, drawing on ones is better for fast movements.
10. Exaggeration. Every action and pose needs to be over exaggerated to give the best finished feel. Faster sequences need more extreme exaggeration.
11. Solid Drawing. Using volume, weight and balance to make the image feel like its in the 3d space. Use 3d shapes to block out character shapes. Use overlap to add to the 3D feel. Avoid twinning.
12. Appeal. Make the characters charismatic and interesting. Use a variety of shapes, play with proportions, keep it simple.

21 Foundations of Animation: http://www.angryanimator.com/word/2018/04/23/21-foundations-of-animation/

Drawing subsitution is linked to libraries. Can delete frames then use the drawing substitution slider to replace the image in the timeline, to adjust timing.