Principles of Animation

Squash and Stretch is the purpose of giving the sense of flex and weight to simple or complex objects such as a human walking, galloping horse or bouncing a ball. It can give a realistic feel and the ability of exaggerate to give an comical feel, however it is important that the objects volume remains the same.

Anticipation makes the action more realistic and prepares the viewer/audience, however anticipation can be left out if it is to be expected.

Staging gives the viewer/audiences' attention by showing the great importance to the scene by the lighting, angle of the scene and placement of the object within the frame, it is important to remember that you keep the scene with relevant detail.

Straight Ahead Action is to draw key frames, from start to end by frame to frame, which creates an illusion of fluid and dynamic movement which can produce realistic sequences however it makes it difficult to keep the proportions consistent which can make the animation to lose its ability to convince the viewer/audience that the animation is realistic, although computer animation makes straight ahead action removes the proportion issues which face and drawn animations.

Pose to Pose is a key principle of animation as it has better workings to make a scene more realistic but making for an example drama or emotional scenes. Both Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose can be used in combination with each other and is often used in the animation community.

Follow Through is where parts of an object are still moving while the object is stopped.

Overlapping Action is where parts of an object will move at different rate of speed or lag.

Slow In and Slow Out is when movement of an object is speed up and slowed down, from that start to the end with the middle moving more quickly. This can be done by having more frames at the start and end and fewer in the middle.

Arcs in animation is important to make movements with realistic realism since the majority of human and animal actions happen along an arched trajectory.

Secondary Action can make the main action look more realistic and help support it.

Timing is important to demonstrate your the action and to give the animation the realism. By using laws of physics and emotions.

Exaggeration is an useful effect to use on a animation as a real life cartoon can look static and dull. By exaggerating the cartoon or animation can make it more realistic.

Solid Drawing means taking into account of the size, weight, space and volume. This can be done by sketching real life to get the basic understanding of three-dimensional shapes, weight, balance, light etc.

Appeal, in the real world is call charisma. All types of characters can be appealing, along with using simple face expressions rather then complicated expressions which can be confusing or hard to read for the viewer/audience.