The 12 principles of Animation
The twelve principles of animation is a set of principles introduced by Disney animators, Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomson in 1981 through a book they created called “The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation.” This book became the work of the leading Disney animators from the 1930’s and on. The effort put into producing these animations lead to more realistic animations. The purpose of the twelve principles was to produce an illusion of characters dealing with the law of physics, abstract and emotional timing and character appeal. The book and its principles is now being referred to as the “Bible of animation” and in 1999 was voted number one of the “best animation books of all time” on an online poll. The twelve principles were traditionally intended for hand-drawn animations, but are still relative for computer animations today.
The most important principle out of the twelve is the “squash and stretch.” The purpose of this principle is to give sense of weight and flexibility to the drawn objects. They can be as simple as a bouncing ball, where they start off as a round circle then the next picture is an oval stretched vertically; or as complex as human face muscle movements. In more 3D and realistic animations, it is important that the aspect of this principle is that the object’s volume does not change when squashed or stretched, or it will make a false looking effect; so whatever is stretched vertically, must be stretched horizontally.
The second principle is Anticipation. Anticipation is used to prepare the audience for action to make it more realistic. Some examples of Anticipation is when a character is about to jump, hit something, pick something up or when another character is arriving. A special effect in anticipation can also be omitted when it is expected, as a feeling of surprise and can often add to a comedy scene, also known as a “surprise gag.”
The Staging principle is well known in theatre and film. The purpose of it, is to draw the audience’s attention to the most important part of the scene to make what’s going on easier to understand; which is why Johnston and Thomas defined it as “the presentation of any idea so that it is completely and unmistakably clear.” Staging is mainly used in action, character’s personality, expression or mood; this can be done by placing characters into the frame, the use of light and shadow and different camera angles and positions to keep focus on the important things rather than the unnecessary detail.
Straight ahead action and pose to pose means drawing out a scene frame by frame from beginning to end and to create more fluid, dynamic illusions of movement to produce realistic action sequences. But it is hard to maintain proportions to create the exact same thing, so pose to pose and a combination of the two techniques works better for dramatic or emotional scenes because surroundings are important. For computer animation, it removes the problems of perfect proportions. Pose to pose is still used for computer animation because of the advantages it brings in composition.
Follow through and overlapping is to help the object look like it’s moving. For overlapping, some examples are when a character is walking, moving breathing or when a car is moving. Follow though is when separate parts of the body will continue to move even when the object stops moving. Another moving technique is called “drag.” Drag is where a character starts to move while parts of it take a few frames to catch up. For example, clothing, arms, hair, loose skin on dogs, etc. take longer to catch up. For realistic animations, it takes more time to process this for better results. When a character is staying still, the principle “moving hold” is used so that the scene doesn’t look dull and lifeless. Moving hold is when the character that is still, displays some sort of movement, like breathing.
______________________________
Name(s): Mika Deguzman
Date: JANUARY 22 2013
Class: Animation 20 Period 3
Assignment: 12 principles
How would you rate your effort?
5
How would you rate your use of class time?
0 ( did it all at home )
How would you rate your process? Did you follow all the required steps?
5
How would you rate your creativity?
4
How would you rate your overall end product?
5
Total Points __19__ (25 max)
If you were to do this assignment again what would you do differently? (5 points)
~ Do it on time
What have you improved on by doing this assignment? (5 points)
~ I learned more about animation and where it came from
If you were to offer a future student advice about this assignment, what would it be? (5 points)
~ Jsut do it on time
Do you have any suggestions for me the teacher if I assign this assignment again? (5 points
I didn't know about this assignment...Tell the students about it
