Bouncing Ball by Lisa Springett

 

Above is an excellent example of the "Bouncing Ball" exercise by Animation Apprentice student Lisa Springett.  Our course at Animation Apprentice, like almost every course in animation, starts with the bouncing ball, as students learn to apply the principles of timing, spacing, paths of action and weight - four of the Twelve Principles of Animation.  Lisa's skilled work shows that even a simple exercise can be entertaining and interesting, and can be completed to a demo-reel level of skill.

 

Why Animators Need a Smooth Path of Action

Path of Action from "The Illusion of Life"

Animators always need to keep an eye on the Path of Action in their animation. Paths of Animation, also known as Arcs, are one of the original 12 Principles of Animation identified by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnstone in their classic work "The Illusion of Life".

A moving object should follow a smooth flowing arc,
without any sudden abrupt changes of direction. 

 

Horse Animation - Free Maya Rigs

Right now we're encouraging all our animation students at Animation Apprentice to make sure they have plenty of horse animation on their demo reels, as one of our favourite London studios crews up for a big horse-related project.

The Animation Apprentice official site (to which all our students have access) has a series of horse video tutorials, teaching students how to animate a walk, a trot and a run.

Art Babbitt and "Successive Breaking of Joints"

Art Babbitt & Richard Williams in Soho c1973

What is "Successive breaking of Joints"? It's really another way of talking about flexibility and overlapping action, which are very similar concepts.

The basic underlying premise is that in any action, everything shouldn't happen at the same time.

It was an idea developed by Disney animator Art Babbit, who gave a series of animation lectures at Richard Williams Animation in Soho in the 1970s.

The Importance of Anticipation

Anticipation - Illusion of Life

Anticipation is one of the 12 Principles of Animation, and it is one of the key principles that every animator must master.

Every action tends to have three components: an anticipation, an action, and a reaction. If you make the anticipation clear, then the rest should follow effortlessly.

Consider the anticipation drawing of Donal Duck on the left, taken from the classic Disney instruction manual "The Illusion of Life" - still a must-have book on every animator's shelf.

It's absolutely clear what Donald is about to do - even though he hasn't done it yet.

The trick with a good anticipation pose is that it is made so clear that the audience knows what the character is going to do, before he or she actually does it. 

How Do Animators Time Animation?

How to time animation?

Recently a new student at Animation Apprentice asked me this question: "How do you decide on the number of frames you use for each shot?" Which is really a way of saying "How do you time animation?".

This is a good question, very commonly asked by junior animators - and a tough one to answer. The short answer is that it takes time, and patience, as a thorough knowledge of timing and spacing takes a while to acquire.

However, one simple approach is time out an action with a stopwatch, or the timer on your phone, to get an idea of how long an action will take. Some animators will count out "one one thousand, two one thousand"... to figure out how many seconds an action might take.

But the best system of all for newbies is to use live-action reference.

Aaron Hartline Explains the Line of Action

Aaron Hartline

Pixar animator Aaron Hartline was in London last week, giving a talk at the VFX Festival in Shoreditch.

Later that day, Aaron gave a great talk at Escape Studios in Shepherd's Bush about some of the important principles of animation, including the Line of Action - a concept first developed by Disney animator Preston Blair, who published one of the first practical books on learning animation back in the 1950s.