Research: What are the principles of Animation?

In animation, you need some principles of animation to produce a good animation video.

What are the principles of Animation?

There are 12 basic principles of animation, namely Squash & Stretch, Anticipation, Staging, Straight Ahead action and pose to pose, Follow through and overlapping action, Slow in and slow out, Arcs, Secondary action, Timing, Exaggeration, Solid drawing and lastly, Appeal.

a. Sqaush & Stretch

Squash & Stretch is said to be the most important principle because it gives a sense of flexibility and weight to a drawn object. For example, it can be applied to a normal bouncing ball or expressions of a human face. Taken to an extreme point, a figure stretched or squashed to an exaggerated degree can have a comical effect. 

b. Anticipation

Anticipation is used to prepare the audience for an action, and to make the action appear more realistic. For example, an athlete needs to move back a bit before taking off from the starting point of a marathon and a dancer needs to bend her knees before jumping off the ground. 

c. Staging

The purpose of the principle Staging is to direct the audience's attention, and make it clear what is of greatest importance in a scene; what is happening, and what is about to happen. The essence of this principle is keeping focus on what is relevant, and avoiding unnecessary detail.

d. Straight Ahead action and pose to pose

These are two different approaches to the actual drawing process. "Straight ahead action" means drawing out a scene frame by frame from beginning to end, while "pose to pose" involves starting with drawing a few key frames, and then filling in the intervals later.

e.  Follow through and overlapping action
These closely related techniques help render movement more realistically, and give the impression that characters follow the laws of physics. "Follow through" means that separate parts of a body will continue moving after the character has stopped. "Overlapping action" is the tendency for parts of the body to move at different rates. A third technique is "drag", where a character starts to move and parts of him take a few frames to catch up. These parts can be such as the parts of the body, such as arms or hair.

f. Slow in and slow out

The movement of the human body, and most other objects, needs time to accelerate and slow down. For this reason, animation looks more realistic if it has more drawings near the beginning and end of an action, emphasizing the extreme poses, and fewer in the middle.

g. Arcs

Animation should adhere to this principle by following implied "arcs" for greater realism. This can apply to a limb moving by rotating a joint, or a thrown object moving along a parabolic trajectory. The exception is mechanical movement, which typically moves in straight lines.

h. Secondary action

Adding secondary actions to the main action gives a scene more life, and can help to support the main action. For example, a person walking can simultaneously swing his arms or keep them in his pockets or he can speak or whistle. The important thing about secondary actions is that they emphasize, rather than take attention away from the main action.

i. Timing

Timing refers to the number of drawings or frames for a given action, which translates to the speed of the action on film. On a purely physical level, correct timing makes objects appear to abide to the laws of physics; for instance, an object's weight decides how it reacts to an impetus, like a push.

j. Exaggeration

Exaggeration is an effect especially useful for animation, as perfect imitation of reality can look static and dull in cartoons. The level of exaggeration depends on whether one seeks realism or a particular style, like a caricature or the style of an artist. The classical definition of exaggeration was invented by Disney.

k. Solid drawing

The principle of solid drawing means taking into account forms in three-dimensional space, giving them volume and weight.

l. Appeal

The principle Appeal is also important as a dull animation will not attract much viewers. Appeal in a cartoon character corresponds to what would be called charisma in an actor. A character who is appealing is not necessarily sympathetic — villains or monsters can also be appealing — the important thing is that the viewer feels the character is real and interesting