 A principle that animate objects will get longer or flatter to emphasize their speed, momentum,

weight and mass

 The amount of squashes and stretches says something about its mass.

 More squash and stretch the softer the object

 Less squash and stretch the stiffer the object

 It is very important to keep the volume consistent

 When the ball longer its get narrower

 When its flatter its get wider

 Can be use to exaggerate facial expressions

 Important note: the ball does not have to be stretching the entire time that its falling ,when its
just starting to fall, it should have its normal shape for the most part and then when its about to
hit the bottom, that’s when it has the most stretch

Anticipation

 This is when a character prepares for an action to give the audience a clue as to what is
happening next as well as to make the action appear more realistic

 Example

 When a character is about to jump before leaping into the air, he has to prepare for the
action by crouching down to build energy. Its like spring that coils up before releasing

 Having no anticipation results in weak punch

 Instead of immediately stretching up the face squashes first to anticipate the stretch and give it
more power

 Anticipation help communicate actions to the audience by preparing them for the next action

Staging

 Staging is the presentation of any idea so that it is completely and unmistakably clear.

 It can be apply to acting, timing, camera angle and setting

 You want to be in full control of where the audience is looking

 Far away are good for big actions

 Close up is good for expression

 Don’t have the main action to be off to the side

 It should be either in the center of the screen or on one of the thirds of the screen
  If they facing to the side, there should be more empty space in the direction that they’re facing,
unless someone is sneaking up behind them, in which case they would no longer be the main
character of the shot

 The main action of the scene should very clear and simple

 It cannot be upstaged by other things that are going on. This takes attention away from the main
point

 It should have proper timing

 Let one action finish before the other person start their action

 Sometimes you need to insert pauses if there is something on screen that needs to be processed
by the viewer, before moving on

 Sometimes if there’s any text on the screen, you should keep it on screen for as long as it take to
read it out loud three times

Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose

 This term describes two methods used to animate drawings.

 STRAIGHT AHEAD - Is where you draw the first drawing, and then you draw the second drawing,
and then the third drawing, and so on.

 STRAIGHT AHEAD - Can lead to the character changing size, or being on a different level from
beginning to end.

 POSE TO POSE - Is where you draw the beginning and end of each main pose, and go back later
to fill in the drawings in between.

 POSE TO POSE - Is generally better for most actions because it gives you the most control. You
have a good idea of what the action is going to look like very early in the process.

ADVANTAGE AND DISADVANTAGE

 STRAIGHT AHEAD

Advantage :

 Is good for animation that is unpredictable. The reason why Straight

Disadvantage :

 If you were to animate a whole

 POSE TO POSE

Advantage :

 It can save you a lot of work.

 You do the main poses to see if it feels right, and you can catch problems
early on.

POSE TO POSE VOCABULARIES

 KEYS – Main poses.

 EXTREMES – Secondary poses.

 BREAKDOWNS – Break down poses.

 Make the KEYS first, perfect them.

 then decide the farthest to character will go in each direction using EXTREMES

 and then decide how you want the extremes to connect, using BREAKDOWN poses.

 At this point you can start inbetweening.

 Its like Pose to Pose with in Pose to Pose because you are perfecting the poses at each level
before moving down to the next level.

Follow Through and Overlapping Action

 It refers to the technique of having body parts and extensions of a character drag behind the
leading body/part of the character. And when the object comes to a stop, the loser parts
continue to move, taking more time to settle down and stop.

 Follow through and Overlapping action are often associated with another technique called
DRAG.

 FOLLOW THROUGH refers to the way parts of the body continue to move after the body has
stopped.

 Add a great deal of realism to a character.

 OVERLAPPING ACTION describes the offset between the timing of the body and its other parts.

 Add a great deal of realism to a character.

 Helps to break up an animation to make it more interesting.

 If we offset the movement of the arms and legs, the animation appears more graceful.
  DRAG describes the technique of delaying the movement of the body parts in relation to the
main body.

 Basically, when the main body moves, the tip of the appendage should be the last catch up, and
when the body stops, the tip should follow through the farthest before settling back.

 Similar to Squash and Stretch, the amount of DRAG that you give sometimes says something
about its mass.

 Arms are a good place to insert FOLLOW THROUGH and OVERLAPPING ACTION. Have the
elbows lead the arms actions. The elbow comes first, followed by the forearm, and then hand.

Slow In and Slow Out

 This principle refers to the way pretty much all movement starts slowly, builds speed, and
finishes slowly. This is one of the most important principle to achieving lifelike motion.

 Without Slow in and Slow out, things feel mechanical. That’s because robots are one of the
only things that actually move their parts at a constant speed.

 To use this principle in 2D animation, you take your extreme poses,

 draw a single in-between,

 Then draw in between those, then only in between the drawings closest to the extremes, until
you're satisfied with the amount of Slow In and Slow out.

 With 3D animation and motion graphics, adding Slow In and Slow Out is a matter of changing the
motion curves from "linear" to "spline" by adjusting the Bezier handles. As time progresses, the
object starts slow, gets fast, and ends slowly.

 Slow In and Slow Out must be used wisely. For example,

 You wouldn't add a slow out to a bouncing ball as it's colliding with the ground, but you would
add it as it's bouncing back up.

 You wouldn't add it to a bullet coming out of a gun, but you would add it as the gun comes up
due to whiplash.

 Many people starting out with animation get impatient and draw the next frame very far away
from the beginning. It's very unrealistic for a character to go from completely still to super fast

 So adding a few drawings to

 ease into it will fix the problem.

 The good way to fix a choppy animation is to analyze the space between the drawings. There
should be evenly spaced with drawings closer together at the beginning of the action and at the
end of the action, and drawings farther apart from the middle.

ARCS
The movements and actions that we see in nature and living things in our day to day lives are very rarely
mechanical in and out or up and down motions.

The movements of most living creatures will follow a slightly circular path also known as an “arc”.

Following arcs while animating makes the animation make more believable and fluid.

SECONDARY ACTION

Secondary Action describes gestures that support the main action to add more dimension to the
character animation.

It gives more life to the main action by adding this principle to support and enhance the main action.

It’s important not to let the Secondary Action dominate the Primary Action.

If the character has a sad expression that should be seen, adding a Secondary Action of wiping the tears,
the hands should not cover the face.(below right)

EXAGGERATION

Basically every action, pose, and expression can be taken to the next level, to increase the amount of
impact on the viewer

how it can be applied to some of the other principles in order to breathe more life energy into the
characters you’re creating, both physically and emotionally.

The classical definition of exaggeration, employed by Disney, was remain true to reality, just presenting it
in a wilder, more extreme form.

SOLID DRAWING

About making sure that foms feel like theyre in three dimensional space, with volume, weight and
balance

It must follow the contour of the spheres surface

Straight line instantly makes the circle look flat

Line of Action

A strong line of action goes through the whole body, illustrates the force of the action, unifies the pose,
and makes a clear statement.

Weight and Balance

Think about the effect of gravity on the character and how he’s supporting himself. Make sure he’s in
balance and isn’t on the verge of falling over, unless that’s part of the scene.

Twinning

It’s best to avoid symmetry in a pose. If the arms mirror one another, it can make the drawing look flat.
Raise one arm or bring it closer to camera to make it more interesting and more dimensional.
Silhouette

A clear silhouette helps the viewer to instantly understand a pose. You can get a surprising amount of
information from just the silhouette—the gender, age, attitude, costume, etc. Hopefully you can
recognize the character in these silhouettes.

Twist

Twisting the body tends to give more dimension and interest to the pose.

Contrapposto (Counter pose in English)

When the hips tilt in one direction, the shoulders tend to tilt in the opposite direction to keep the body
in balance.

Quality

Audiences like to see a quality of charm, pleasing design, simplicity,

communication, or magnetism. A weak drawing or design lacks appeal. A design

that is complicated or hard to read lacks appeal. Clumsy shapes and awkward

moves all have low appeal.

Posing

In creating an appealing pose for a character, one thing to avoid is called "twins",

where both arms and both legs are in the same position, doing the same thing.

This creates a stiff pose that is unappealing. Vary the parts of the body a bit,

including the facial features, makes a character more appealing.

APPEAL

The difference between appealing animation and unappealing animation is not

limited to subject matter, what matters is how you present the ideas, concepts, and

emotional highs/lows to the audience—it’s about presentation.

Appeal is the culmination of all the other principles above it.

3 steps in dynamic design which help boast the appeal

Variety of Shapes

Proportions

Keep it simple