12 Basic Principles of Animation

Two of Walt Disney's animators, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, published what they called the "12 Principles of Animation" in their illustrated book "The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation," revolutionizing the field of animation.

1. Squash and Stretch: This principle gives weight and dimension to objects. The animator compresses the shape of the object as it hits a surface and elongates it as it leaves.
2. Anticipation: This prepares the audience for an action and creates a sense of suspense as well, making the animation more realistic overall.
3. Staging: The objects and drawings in the animation must direct the audience's attention towards the most important part of the scene.
4. Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose: In straight ahead action, the animator does each scene frame by frame. In pose to pose, he or she does the key frames first and fills in the intervals later.
5. Follow Through and Overlapping Action: These principles help the animation render movement easily and realistically, and make sure the animation follows the laws of physics to create a real environment.
6. Slow In and Slow Out: This incorporates time for parts of the body to accelerate and decelerate. More poses are emphasized in the beginning and ends, with fewer frames in the middle.
7. Arc: Natural actions usually follow an arched trajectory, a natural law this principle introduces to animations. A ball flies in an arc when thrown across a field, not in a straight line.
8. Secondary Action: This allows two or more actions to occur simultaneously; for example, a man can walk, check his watch, and talk to someone at the same time.
9. Timing: Timing is the speed of the animation, which is based on the number of frames per action. Timing is vital to an animation to create an accurate sense of reality in physics to time the actions of objects in nature.
10. Exaggeration: Especially used in cartoons, this emphasizes certain aspects of an animation. Although it does not follow the laws of physics or reality all the time, it makes animations more interesting and distinguishes cartoons from other entertainments.
11. Solid Drawing: This gives the animation volume and dimension and creates it in a three-dimensional space.
12. Appeal: This makes the characters in an animation interest the character. If the character is intriguing and real, they have appeal.

References: 12 Basic Principles of Animation

My First Post

Welcome to my new blog, Lahari Vuppaladhadiam's 2D Computer Animation! I am in Mr. Farley's 6th period class and I am very excited to create a blog to display my interest in animation! My favorite animated Disney character is Aladdin.

I am filling this space with a quote because: "Nature abhors a vacuum." -Aristotle