The 12 principles of animation were introduced in class. While each principle is important, I feel they can be re-arranged in a sequential manner for a step-by-step approach.
So re-organizing the 12 principles according to my understanding –
- Straight Ahead & Pose-to-Pose : deciding what action requires which method should be the 1st step.
- Staging : Individual key-frames should be composed well.
- Timing and Motion : Pose spacing and timing of the primary object should be fixed next.
- Ease-in and out : To add a sense of acceleration and deceleration at the ends of the actions.
- Arcs : While fixing the motion path, arcs or straight lines should be decided according to the action.
- Squash and Stretch : This adds physical characteristic to the object.
- Anticipation : Every action needs an opposite action before starting to prepare the audience.
- Follow Through and Overlap : Parts like hair, cloth or tails keep moving after the main body stops and catch up afterwards.
- Secondary Action : A reaction (similar to a tail) of other objects from the primary objects action.
- Exaggeration and Appeal : The two can be merged as both are used to give a personality to the action.
- Solid Drawing : As a 3D animator, it can be considered as the models and textures should be clean.
The second exercise was to learn Follow-through and overlapping principle through a pendulum.
After deciding the main disc timing, I did the keyframes straight ahead for the each pendulum arm with a diminishing amplitudes. Then editing the graphs of each arm to offset slightly from the previous one gave the desired result.