1. SQUASH AND STRETCH This action gives the illusion of weight and volume to a character as it moves.

Also squash and stretch is useful in animating dialogue and doing facial expressions. How extreme the use of squash and stretch is, depends on what is required in animating the scene. Usually it's broader in a short style of picture and subtler in a feature. It is used in all forms of character animation from a bouncing ball to the body weight of a person walking. This is the most important element you will be required to master and will be used often. 2. ANTICIPATION This movement prepares the audience for a major action the character is about to perform, such as, starting to run, jump or change expression. A dancer does not just leap off the floor. A backwards motion occurs before the forward action is executed. The backward motion is the anticipation. A comic effect can be done by not using anticipation after a series of gags that used anticipation. Almost all real action has major or minor anticipation such as a pitcher's wind-up or a golfers' back swing. Feature animation is often less broad than short animation unless a scene requires it to develop a characters personality. 3. STAGING A pose or action should clearly communicate to the audience the attitude, mood, reaction or idea of the character as it relates to the story and continuity of the story line. The effective use of long, medium, or close up shots, as well as camera angles also helps in telling the story. There is a limited amount of time in a film, so each sequence, scene and frame of film must relate to the overall story. Do not confuse the audience with too many actions at once. Use one action clearly stated to get the idea across, unless you are animating a scene that is to depict clutter and confusion. Staging directs the audience's attention to the story or idea being told. Care must be taken in background design so it isn't obscuring the animation or competing with it due to excess detail behind the animation. Background and animation should work together as a pictorial unit in a scene. 4. STRAIGHT AHEAD AND POSE TO POSE ANIMATION Straight ahead animation starts at the first drawing and works drawing to drawing to the end of a scene. You can lose size, volume, and proportions with this method, but it does have spontaneity and freshness. Fast, wild action scenes are done this way. Pose to Pose is more planned out and charted with key drawings done at intervals throughout the scene. Size, volumes, and proportions are controlled better this way, as is the action. The lead animator will turn charting and keys over to his assistant. An assistant can be better used with this method so that the animator doesn't have to draw every drawing in a scene. An animator

can do more scenes this way and concentrate on the planning of the animation. Many scenes use a bit of both methods of animation. 5. FOLLOW THROUGH AND OVERLAPPING ACTION When the main body of the character stops all other parts continue to catch up to the main mass of the character, such as arms, long hair, clothing, coat tails or a dress, floppy ears or a long tail (these follow the path of action). Nothing stops all at once. This is follow through. Overlapping action is when the character changes direction while his clothes or hair continues forward. The character is going in a new direction, to be followed, a number of frames later, by his clothes in the new direction. "DRAG," in animation, for example, would be when Goofy starts to run, but his head, ears, upper body, and clothes do not keep up with his legs. In features, this type of action is done more subtly. Example: When Snow White starts to dance, her dress does not begin to move with her immediately but catches up a few frames later. Long hair and animal tail will also be handled in the same manner. Timing becomes critical to the effectiveness of drag and the overlapping action. 6. SLOW-OUT AND SLOW-IN As action starts, we have more drawings near the starting pose, one or two in the middle, and more drawings near the next pose. Fewer drawings make the action faster and more drawings make the action slower. Slow-ins and slow-outs soften the action, making it more life-like. For a gag action, we may omit some slow-out or slow-ins for shock appeal or the surprise element. This will give more snap to the scene. 7. ARCS All actions, with few exceptions (such as the animation of a mechanical device), follow an arc or slightly circular path. This is especially true of the human figure and the action of animals. Arcs give animation a more natural action and better flow. Think of natural movements in the terms of a pendulum swinging. All arm movement, head turns and even eye movements are executed on an arcs. 8. SECONDARY ACTION This action adds to and enriches the main action and adds more dimension to the character animation, supplementing and/or re-enforcing the main action. Example: A character is angrily walking toward another character. The walk is forceful, aggressive, and forward leaning. The leg action is just short of a stomping walk. The secondary action is a few strong gestures of the arms working with the walk. Also, the possibility of dialogue being delivered at the same time with tilts and turns of the head to accentuate the walk and dialogue, but not so much as to distract from the walk action. All of these actions should

work together in support of one another. Think of the walk as the primary action and arm swings, head bounce and all other actions of the body as secondary or supporting action. 9. TIMING Expertise in timing comes best with experience and personal experimentation, using the trial and error method in refining technique. The basics are: more drawings between poses slow and smooth the action. Fewer drawings make the action faster and crisper. A variety of slow and fast timing within a scene adds texture and interest to the movement. Most animation is done on twos (one drawing photographed on two frames of film) or on ones (one drawing photographed on each frame of film). Twos are used most of the time, and ones are used during camera moves such as trucks, pans and occasionally for subtle and quick dialogue animation. Also, there is timing in the acting of a character to establish mood, emotion, and reaction to another character or to a situation. Studying movement of actors and performers on stage and in films is useful when animating human or animal characters. This frame by frame examination of film footage will aid you in understanding timing for animation. This is a great way to learn from the others. 10. EXAGGERATION Exaggeration is not extreme distortion of a drawing or extremely broad, violent action all the time. Its like a caricature of facial features, expressions, poses, attitudes and actions. Action traced from live action film can be accurate, but stiff and mechanical. In feature animation, a character must move more broadly to look natural. The same is true of facial expressions, but the action should not be as broad as in a short cartoon style. Exaggeration in a walk or an eye movement or even a head turn will give your film more appeal. Use good taste and common sense to keep from becoming too theatrical and excessively animated 11. SOLID DRAWING The basic principles of drawing form, weight, volume solidity and the illusion of three dimension apply to animation as it does to academic drawing. The way you draw cartoons, you draw in the classical sense, using pencil sketches and drawings for reproduction of life. You transform these into color and movement giving the characters the illusion of three-and four-dimensional life. Three dimensional is movement in space. The fourth dimension is movement in time. 12. APPEAL A live performer has charisma. An animated character has appeal. Appealing animation does not mean just being cute and cuddly. All characters have to have appeal whether they are heroic, villainous, comic or cute. Appeal, as you will use

it, includes an easy to read design, clear drawing, and personality development that will capture and involve the audiences interest. Early cartoons were basically a series of gags strung together on a main theme. Over the years, the artists have learned that to produce a feature there was a need for story continuity, character development and a higher quality of artwork throughout the entire production. Like all forms of story telling, the feature has to appeal to the mind as well as to the eye.

Teknologi animasi telah berubah dimulai lebih dari 35.000 tahun yang lalu melalui usaha pertama manusia batu dalam menceritakan dalam bentuk lukisan diatas batu, namun dan prinsip animasi akan tetap terjaga. Bagaimana dan seperti apa prinsip animasi tersebut? Secara teknis, metode produksi film animasi akan tetap sepanjang masa dan tida berubah sejak Raole Barre menemukan Peg Hole dan john Bray menemukan sel tahun 1914 sebagai sebuah metode/prinsip produksi animasi menggunakan animasi gambar manual (Hand Drawing) yang telah digunakan lebih dari 80 tahun hingga kini dengan menggunakan teknologi komputer animasi, scanning, coloring dan compositing. Prinsip animasi mencapai masa kejayaannya disekitar tahun 1930-1940 ketika walt disney studio di Hyperion Boulevard di Hollywood mengimplementasikan prinsip tersebut dan sukses luar biasa. Hampir semua jenis film animasi yang diproduksi saat ini masih menggunakan prinsip dasar animasi sebagai landasan dalam membuat hasil karya animasi.Prinsip tersebut tetap digunakan dengan apapun teknologi pembuatannya. Prinsip dasar ini tertuang juga dalam buku karangan Frank Thomas & Ollie Johnston, Disney Animation, The Illusion of Life. Adapun prinsip dalam karakter animasi yang diimlementasikan oleh studio Disney adalah : 1. Squash and Stretch. (Distorsi/penyimpangan bentuk benda/objek dalam proses pergerakannya) 2. Anticipation. (Gerakan pendahuluan/antisipasi sebelum gerakan utama terjadi) 3. Staging. (Posisi kamera untuk merekam aksi terbaik) 4. Straight-ahead vs. Pose-to-pose action. (2 prosedur dasar) 5. Follow-through and Overlapping action. (Gerakan setelah berhenti tibatiba) 6. Slow-in and Slow-out. (Gerakan halus dengan delay waktu ketika memulai dan mengakhiri gerakan) 7. Arcs. (Rencana alur gerakan) 8. Secondary Actions. (Kepala mengibas ketika kaki berjalan) 9. Timing. (Relasi waktu atas gerakan untuk memunculkan ilusi yang real) lO.Exaggeration. (Gerakan dan waktu karikaturistik ) 11.Solid drawing. (Belajar membuat gambar dengan tangan untuk menjadi animator yang handal) 12.Appeal. (Unik dan menarik) 13.Mass and weight. (Massa dan isi untuk menunjukan volume dan berat) 14.Character acting. (Bergerak dan berfikir layaknya seorang aktor film)

Hi there! As an animator, I often asked to share my experience in animation. Since I'm also a lecturer that teach Lightwave and Character Animation, I would love to share it to everyone. Enjoy! I would divide 12 principles to first 3 principles which I think is the most important things to understand for beginner : 1. Timing. This is the most important thing. You should be able to judge timing of the movement of everything you see in reality and duplicate it in your animation. With timing you can make your object look sad, heavy, light, happy etc with only a good timing. Nothing in this world would share same timing / pace and there should be a slight differences for every object. Say, A heavy object would take different timing than a light one. Look at the examples: Light ( 815 KB, mpeg1 ) Heavy ( 269 KB, mpeg1 ) 2. Slow In and Slow out. Or Ease in Ease Out. It's the natural thing in this world where object would start moving and stop gradually not abrupt. Except in some extreme cases. Every object has a momentum and according to Newton law, every object would try to keep current state. Uh, now we're talking physics... Look at the examples: With Slow In / Out ( 399 KB, mpeg1 ) Without Slow In / Out ( 363 KB, mpeg1 ) 3. Arcs. A movement would naturally go with arcs not straight.Look at your arm, notice how it move when you want to reach something..it would moving in arcs because they has joints. Try to throw rock ( be careful not to break your neighbor glass ) and notice how it fly with arcs. With Arcs (271 KB, mpeg1 ) Without Arcs ( 295 KB, mpeg1 ) Now we go to other 5 principles 4. Follow Through and Overlapping. It's most obvious in a character_that_have_many_limbs. Dog for example. Try this: grab enormous dog food then go find a big and thick wood panel. Don't forget to have your favourite camcorder too. Call your dog, show him the dog food ( for best result, don't feed your dog at least a day ). Quickly push start button on your camcorder, and when your dog ( should be running like crazy after you, if not, you may be not feed it for a week, you must be totally a psycho ) at a point critical near you, put the big thick wood panel in front of it. Bam. Now rewind your tape ( make sure it's inserted before you roll the camcorder, if not, have your dog ram to you again ) then play it in 1/4 speed. See when your dog hit the wood panel, the head stop, the neck still move forward a bit then bend, the body also move forward then may bent upward, the tail sway upward following belly, and so on. The point is, nothing stops in one time, and they always do some overshoot because a

momentum they carried. OK, I'm just kidding, don't do this to your dog........try your neighbor's dog...... ( just kiddin' again ) With Follow Thru and Overlapping ( 815 KB, mpeg1 ) Without Follow Thru and OverLapping ( 701 KB, mpeg1 ) 5. Secondary Action. It's, cleverly, not a main movement. Ever saw people standing in a Bus Stop ? They never standing still, they do some small action. The context is standing waiting for bus, but they might scratch their head, or move their jacket form left to right, etc. Got it? Just a small action. Even a breathe is considered Secondary Action. With Secondary Action ( 581 KB, mpeg1 ) Without Secondary Action ( 24 KB, jpeg, this one is what you see in a very stiff robot all the time, so let's save bandwith :) 6. Squash and strecth. Ha! This one is tough to see in realistic world. It may do some squash and stretch but in very small amount that your eyes will never noticed. My eyes also. Except very flabby thing. With Squash and Strecth ( 815 KB, mpeg1 ) 7. Exaggeration. The heart of cartoony animation. It take ordinary animation to a level where it catch the eye. I believe you already know this. If not, you wouldn't bother learning animation. Two sample below is just simple examples. One is ordinary move, it's appeared right because it has secondary movement, overlapping etc but lacks of eye catching-ish thing. Other example is exaggerated version. Ordinary ( 685 KB, mpeg1 ) Exaggerated ( 1.323 KB, mpeg1 ) 8. Straight Ahead and Pose to pose. This one is addressed for 2D animation. But we can translate it for 3D where we work in stages. I always work in stages. Means that I do some rough timing, then if it's considered okay, I refine and refine and refine, and save it in different name. This way, I can match the time needed first and refine whatever necessary. It is considered Pose to pose style. While straight ahead is a style when you just do animation in detail from at very beginning. Stage01 ( 465 KB, mpeg1 ) Stage02 ( 1.317 KB, mpeg1 ) Stage03 ( 1.317 KB, mpeg1 ) 9. Anticipation. A movement or act or scene preceeding another scene or act or movement. The purpose is to make viewer 'aware' of what will happen next ( and hopefully will hold a breath ). It's common in Horror movie that a character have back shoot camera following that character. Purpose? For creating tense. Or in Cartoon movie when a character jump off a cliff it usually do some hopeless grin, the "I'm doomed" style, then fall behind. Or in the example below, a character sway far back then.....Bam!

Anticipation ( 249 KB, mpeg1 ) Now we reach the last 3 principles 10. Staging. This principle isn't directly related with motion, as it more visually related. The most famous example would be 'magician pose', if you recall ( and if you ever watched one ), the magician always stand with most of his gesture visible. This meant for that viewer will easily understand what is happening ( and hide his/her tricks as well ). Let's see sample no. 1 Staging 01 in this sample wee see a character with no clue what is he doing? The best and classic way to judge is looking at his outline . We can't understand anything from this. Now let's see sample no.2 Staging 02 ah...now we clearly get the idea. He's shocking...we also could see his outline. The outline is clearly visible to viewer. Now why he is shocking ? You can finish the sequence with this. 11. Personality. A character should have distinct from the other character. I believe that no one in this planet in the same time share same personality. Even twins has different personality no matter small it is. If we clearly define what personality a character has, it will drive the character to move in its own movement characteristic. If we achieve this, we will have a character that looks like its move on it own thought, not just a puppet anymore. In samples you could see two different personalities on a same character. Cocky ( 1.323 KB, mpeg1, same as exaggerated sample above ) Dumb (1.183 KB, mpeg1 ) 12. Appeal. Well, this one is a bit difficult to explain, as it more 'feeling' related. But let's see previous example, where a robot walking in cocky style. It has more appeal than 'mere' walking, no matter good the cycle or secondary or follow thru. The cocky walking is better to watch, but please do not fall into a conclusion that every character should walk like that! Another example, I personally like Darth Vader character in StarWars movie than Luke Skywalker, hell, even Han Solo is charmer than Luke ( but I luuuuuv Leia in bikini... ). Again, do not fall into a conclusion where Bad Guys is charmer. It just how you define a character, visually and personality. Now, before I finished this, there's one thing to understand : You don't have to apply all these 12 principles in an animation. You have to understand the basic and why. They're just principles, a guideline. What we are trying to achieve is delivering our message to viewer, and you decide how. You can omit one or two or more if you understand and believe it's fine to do so. Happy animating!

Why
Real world Physics, again. For their own good, characters and objects don't come to a stop or drastically change velocity immediately. They are accelerated to a given speed or slowed down from it, even if this happens too fast to be noticed by naked eyes. The effect is also present and very important in living creatures. Consider this: we use our muscles for the needed contracting and relaxing to bend and straighten joints and let us move. This system accelerates the moving parts from rest and slows them down for stoping (to stay or to change direction). Without slow-out and slow-in, we easily get hurt and wear out muscles, tendons and articulations. And that's why we use it when animating -- no, not to protect the characters! It's to make them more believable, life-like.

12 basic principles of animation

1. Timing 2. Ease In and Out (or Slow In and Out) 3. Arcs 4. Anticipation 5. Exaggeration 6. Squash and Stretch 7. Secondary Action 8. Follow Through and Overlapping Action 9. Straight Ahead Action and Pose-To-Pose Action 10. Staging 11. Appeal 12. Personality

By following and knowing when, where and how to apply these basic ideas, and by understanding them, one should be able to create good animation. Simply memorizing these principles isn't the point. It's whether or not you truly understand and can utilize these ideas. It will show automatically in your work.

1. Timing

Timing, or the speed of an action, is an important principle because it gives meaning to movement. The speed of an action defines how well the idea will be read to the audience. Something like an eye blink can be fast or slow. If it's fast, a character will seem alert and awake. If it's slow the character may seem tired and lethargic. Timing and Motion are tied together because in animation the two are basically the same thing. Change the time that it takes a character to complete an action and it will change it's motion. Cartoon motion is usually characterized as fast snappy timing from one pose to another. Realistic motion tends to have more to do about going between the poses. But both require careful attention to the timing of every action.

Weight

Timing can also defines the weight of an object. Two similar objects can appear to be vastly different weights by manipulating timing alone. For example, if you were to hit a croquet ball and a balloon with a mallet, the result would be two different actions. The croquet ball would require more force to place it into motion, would go farther, and need more force to stop it. On the other hand, the balloon would require far less force to send it flying, and because of it's low mass and weight, it wouldn't travel as far, and would require less force to stop it. Example Example2

Scaling Properties

Timing can also contribute to size and scale of an object or character. A larger character has more mass, more weight and more inertia than a tiny character, therefore it moves slower. In contrast, a tiny character has less mass, weight, and inertia, therefore its movements are quicker.

Determining Emotion

Timing plays an essential role in illustrating the emotional state of an object or character. It is the varying speed of the characters movements that indicate whether a character is lethargic, excited, nervous, or relaxed.

2. Ease In and Out: (or Slow In and Out)

Ease in and out has to do with gradually causing an object to accelerate, or come to rest, from a pose. An object or limb may slow down at it approaches a pose (Ease In) or gradually start to move from rest (Ease Out). "Gradually" doesn't have to mean slow, it just means the object isn't moving 100% and then in one frame coming to a complete stop. You usually use ease in and out for most movements. Even if the character is just turning their head, you will probably want a few frames to soften up the start or end of the motion. http://www.siggraph.org/education/materials/HyperGraph/animation/character_animation /principles/bouncing_ball_example_of_slow_in_out.htm Example

Speed
Eases can be used to create acceleration and deceleration. As a ball bounces, it accelerates and decelerates. When you drop the ball, it gains speed as it approaches the ground. After the impact on the ground it bounces and begins to loose speed as it reaches the apex of its bounce. The graph of the balls acceleration would show an increasing distance between the balls positions as it came closer to the ground. Similarly, the graph of the balls bounce off the ground would indicate a decreasing distance between the balls positions as it reaches the apex.

3. Arcs 4. Anticipation
Motion in most animation can be broken down in to three sections:

1. Anticipation of an Action the setup for an action 2. The Action the actual action 3. The Follow Through- the movement at the end of a motion For good clear animation, the viewer should know what (anticipation) is about happen, what is happening (the actual action itself) and what happened (related to follow through).

There are two main uses of anticipation: 1. Prepare for a movement 2. To draw the viewers attention to something. The first is the most basic. If you are throwing a ball the anticipation will be bringing your arm back to prepare to throw the ball. Anything done in order to complete an action is anticipation. For example, before a character takes a step to walk, they must shift their weight on one leg so they can lift the other. The second is more for the viewer. By drawing the viewers attention to some thing before it is going to happen it helps to keep the audience looking where the animator intends them look. A character looking off screen and reacting provides the audience with a cue to where an important action is about to happen. There are times when no anticipation is wanted, for example in a scary movie you may not want the audience to know that some thing is going to happen. That way when it happens you get the surprise scare factor in the movie.

Indicating Speed
Take the swing of a bat. If the bat is swung far back, one expects the ball to fly far and away upon contact, or the batter to fall over from the power of the swing. If the bat is only pulled slightly back, we expect a

ground ball, or a pop fly with very little distance. The amount of anticipation used considerably affects the speed of the action which follows it. If the audience isn't properly prepared for a fast action, they may miss it completely. The anticipating action must be made larger or the action slower.

Revealing

In addition, Anticipation could be used to indicate what a character is about to do. When a person is about to steal something, their eyes shift up and down the grocery aisle, looking for security, and then at the item they wish to take. This action gives the audience an opportunity to see what the thief will take before he acts.

Rules are made...

Anticipation could also be used to mislead the audience. When a person goes to lift a large object, their body bends over more and they widen their stance. The anticipated action would be a struggle to raise the object off the ground, however the action could result in the objects flying off of the ground and the person falling over from the miscalculation. Example

5. Exaggeration
Exaggeration can be used in animation with great results.

It is used to accentuate an action. It should be used in a careful and balanced manner, not arbitrarily.

Figure out what the desired goal of an action or sequence is and what sections need to be exaggerated.

One can exaggerate

Motions Poses Expressions

Generally when animating to dialogue, one listens to the track and picks out areas that sound like they have more stress exaggerate poses and motions that fall at those times. The key is to take something and make it more extreme in order to give it more gesture, but not so much that it destroys believability. In many cases, subtlety is good. Subtle action mixed with exaggeration here and there can make for some of the best acting and animation.

Essence
However the key to proper use of exaggeration lies in exploring the essence of the action or idea, understanding the reason for it, so that the audience will also understand it. If a character is sad, make him sadder; if he is bright, make him shine; worried, make him fret.

Balance
A scene has many components to it including design, action, objects and emotion. Exaggeration of every element in a scene creates a feeling of uneasiness in your audience. Everything is distorted and unrealistic. Find a balance in your scene. Allow your audience a grounds for comparison of the exaggeration and by so doing, the whole scene will remain very realistic to them.

6. Squash and Stretch 7. Secondary Action

A secondary action is an action that results directly from another action.

Secondary actions are important in heightening interest and adding a realistic complexity to the animation.

Conflict

If a secondary action conflicts with, becomes more interesting, or dominates in any way, it is either the wrong choice or is staged improperly.

Facial Animation Dangers

Generally, in facial animation, the movement is a secondary action, subordinate to the bodies movement. The danger with facial animation isn't that it will dominate the scene, but that it will not be seen. The change in expression should happen before or after a move, changes in the middle of a major move will mostly likely go unnoticed.

8. Follow Through and Overlapping Action

Follow Through
While anticipation is the preparation of an action, follow through is the movement that happens after the actual action. Actions rarely come to a sudden and complete stop, but are generally carried past their termination point. This makes sense when you think about the conservation of momentum. If you throw a ball your hand would gain speed, since your hand has mass it wants to keep going ( Newtons First law). This is the follow through time.

An example of this is a pony tail. If a character moves their head, the pony tail is moving because of secondary action. Once the head stops (the main action) the pony tail will still continue to move a bit longer before it comes to rest (it is overlapped). Follow through also helps to define the mass of something if it is light it can slow down very quickly. But if it is something large it will move slowly and slow down slowly. If two objects are moving at the same speed the larger one will travel farther unless more force is applied to slow it down. If there is a large dinosaur in an animation it is going to make slower changes in movement; where as if there is a small bird it can hop from point A to B to C in a blink of an eye. The follow through action can almost be disregarded with some thing small such as a bird and no one would comment about it. If you ignore the follow through on something large, it will be noticed. Example Example 2

Overlapping Action
Slight variations in the timing and speed of loose parts makes objects seem more natural. This overlapping action makes the objects and movement more interesting. An action should never be brought to a complete stop before starting another action. Overlapping maintains a continual flow between whole phrases of actions. Overlapping Action is something else used to make things look real. Overlapping Action is the starting of a new action before the previous one was finished. "It is not necessary for an animator to take a character to one point, complete that action completely, and then turn to the following action as if he had never given it a thought until after completing the first action. When a character knows what he is going to do he doesn't have to stop before each individual action and think to do it. He has it planned in advance in his mind." Walt Disney

Initiation

In figure movement, actions of the parts are not simultaneous, some

parts initiate moves, while others follow. For example, the wrist leads the hand and fingers in a gesture.

Weight and Drag

Appendages or loose parts of a character or object will drag behind the leading part of the object. Then as the object comes to a stop, the looser parts continue to move taking longer to settle down and stop. Weight of the appendages dictates the speed with which they follow the lead, heavier objects drag farther behind. The lighter the object the smaller the drag and the quicker the stop.

9. Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose Action

There are 2 basic methods to creating animation

Straight Ahead Animation

In straight ahead animation the animator draws or sets up objects one frame at a time in sequential order. For example, the animator draws the first frame of the animation, and then draws the second, and so on until the sequence is complete. In this way there is one drawing or image per frame that the animator has setup. This approach tends to yield a more creative and fresh look but can be difficult to time correctly, and tweak. Straight ahead action is used for wild, scrambling actions where spontaneity is important.

Pose-To-Pose Animation
Drawing or setting up key poses and then drawing or creating inbetween images is how Pose-To-Pose animation is done. This is the basic computer "keyframe" approach to animation. It is excellent for tweaking, timing, and planning out the animation ahead of time. Pose-to-pose is used for animation that requires good acting, where poses and timing are important. You won't see the straight ahead technique used for movies. With computer animation it is almost imposable to do. It does, however, lend its self to creativity and strange zany looking work. Because pose-to-pose animation lends its self to planning and the ability to time the sequences it is used in movies With computers, some people tend to create a hybrid of the two, planning out the overall poses, and then straight ahead animating the stuff in-between.

Relevance in CGI

Pose-to-pose action is an important tool in computer animation. Objects are built in a hierarchy, where each layer of the hierarchy has an associated transformation. Animation is then built up one transformation at a time from one pose to the next. For example, when animating a person walking, you would first set the pose position for the hips at the start of the motion, then you would adjust the hip translation for the end of the action. Then building upon this original pose, you would transform other objects in the model, until you had traversed the hierarchy. All of your actions must be well thought out, and the timing and poses planned so that even in the early stages, the action is clear.

10. Staging
Staging has to do with the composition of an animation. This particular section has less to do with the physics behind all of the movement but art. When talking about staging there are a few things to consider the silhouette of the character and the symmetry.

As a general rule the audience should be able to tell what is happening just by seeing the silhouette of the characters. If the actions are not clear enough to under stand when they are in silhouette, the odds are they are not going to be interesting in a normal view. This also helps to cut out un-needed movement. If a movement happens on the side of an object that will not be seen, dont make that movement. If it is an important movement the animator may want to conceder changing the audiences view point, the stance, or the location of the character to make all of the movements mean something to the viewer. Symmetry in animation tends to also build a boring scene. Life like movement is unsymmetrical. A persons stance is not symmetrical either. When jumping we tend to land one foot then the other not both feed at the same time. When animators animate an image careful attention must be paid to keeping a realistic asymmetry in the scene. This is important with increased use of computers in animation. When a computer is used to make a face it tends have to much symmetry resulting in a doll like look. Staging also is important for drawing attention to what you want seen. This is done in may ways, most of which I already discussed in the anticipation section for the sake of brevity I will leave it at what I described there.

Readability

An action is staged so that it is understood. To stage an idea clearly, the audience's eye must be led to exactly where it needs to be at the right moment. It is important that when staging an action, that only one idea be seen by the audience at a time. For example, in a scene with plenty of action, the audience's eye will be drawn to an object at rest. Conversely, in a still shot, the eye will be drawn to the item in motion. The animator is saying, in effect, "Look at this, now look at this, and now look at this." Background characters must be animated such that they are still "alive", but not so much that they steal the viewers attention from the main action.

Personality

A personality is staged so that it is recognizable; an expression so that it can be seen;. A shy child would turn their eyes down, and slightly rotate their upper body away for the gaze of another child. The child's

actions reveal the fact that he is shy. When staging a personality, it is useful to use characteristics that clearly define the character.

Mood

A mood is staged so that it will affect the audience. The tight composition of dark trees in a dense forest, leaning in toward a scared youth; eyes glowing from within the thick; hurried breathing filling the air; the child's eye wide open. All of these elements have been clearly staged to inspire fear.

11. Appeal
Where the live action actor has charisma, the animated character has appeal.

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.

12. Personality
Refers to the correct application of the other principles. Personality determines the success of an animation. The idea is that the animated creature really becomes alive and enters the true character of the role.

 One character would not perform an action the same way in two different emotional states. No two characters would act the same. It is important to make the personality of a character distinct, but at the same time be familiar to the audience. Personality has a lot to do with: 1. What is going on in the mind of the character. 2. The traits of the character 3. Mannerisms of the character.