According to The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation written by Disney animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas, the main purpose of the principles is to portray emotional timing and character appeal.
Squash and Stretch
This is considered the most important principle as it gives the object a sense of weight and flexibility such as in a human face when it moves. The key aspect is that the objects volume does not change when it is squashed or stretched, for example, when something is stretched horizontally the shape of it will obviously change so therefore the shape also needs to change vertically to make it look realistic such as in picture B of this bouncing ball image.
Anticipation
This is preparation an action to make the action look more realistic when it is performed. For example, in the animation when someone is walking, not only the feet move but as in real life the hips will move as will the arms, making the shoulders move also.
Slow in and Out
Like most things, when something is moving it needs time to speed up and slow down. In animation it looks more realistic if it is created so that there are more drawings in the beginning and end of an action and fewer in the middle, this can be applied to almost everything such as running, sitting down or standing up. The picture of the bouncing ball is an example of this.
Arcs
Most natural action tends to move in a arched motion so animation uses this for greater realism which can apply to limbs moving, a rotating joint or something being thrown.When the thing moving speeds up the arc flattens out, and it does not apply to mechanical movement which usually moves in straight lines, but generally most movement is based around the arc shape.
Staging
This helps direct the audience to where the important part of the scene is and where their attention should be. The aim in staging is to keep the action, character, expression or mood the focus of the scene and don't allow distractions to subside it, it can be done through whereabouts it is placed on the stage, the lighting or the angle/position of the camera.
Straight ahead action and pose to pose
These are the way the scene is produced through drawing. It can be done "straight ahead action" which is drawing it out from beginning to end including all the action which creates a more fluid illusion of movement or action scenes. Or there is "pose to pose" which is drawing the key frames and filling the detail in later which is better for portraying emotion and dramatic scenes.
Follow through and overlapping action
This generally helps portray movement more realistically and not in separate motions but gives the illusion it is all one. Follow through is the necessary body parts moving when the character has stopped. Overlapping is the way the body moves at different times and dynamics such as the arms and feet wont necessarily move in exact time with each other. Another technique related to this is "drag." This is when the progression of movement is shown throughout a few frames such as a running character and the legs and arms following the torsos movement.
Secondary Action
This exaggerates the focused action and gives the scene more life and supports the main action, does not take away any attention from the main focus, such as a character can be walking, this can be made more realistic by whistling or a swinging action with the arms.
Timing
Correct timing is very important to create the illusion of movement within the frames. It refers to the number of drawings or frames for the action, for example pushing something that in realist life is heavier should have more frames and a slower timing than something lighter.
Exaggeration
The use of exaggeration makes the animation look a lot more exciting as sometimes reality can look boring in animation. It can help define the characters personality and the differences between them, as well as exaggerating characters physical features to help the audiences understanding of characters.
Solid Drawing
To be able to draw the scenes the drawer needs to understand three dimensional space and weight, balance, light and shadow for it to be realistic as possible. An error that can easily ruin an animation is when the left and right side of character mirrors each other making it look stiff and unrealistic.
Appeal
This is making the audience feel the character they are watching is interesting. There are things that animators can do when they create faces of characters that can automatically make the audience like a character without them even realizing such as making a baby-like face or making the face symmetrical. This compares with a more hard looking face that will lack appeal. For example in the characters below Captain Hook has a very angular face with sharp details, whereas Peter Pan has a more rounded face which looks more appealing to the audience who will be instantly warmed to him.
No comments:
Post a Comment