Concepts and Terms
12 Principles of Animation: The 12 Basic Principles of animation are 12 main concepts of animation put into a list introduced by animators at Disney. These 12 principles include: squash and stretch, anticipation, staging, straight ahead action vs. pose-to-pose, follow through vs. overlapping action, slow in and slow out, arcs, secondary action, timing, exaggeration, solid drawing and appeal.
Below is a video demonstrating each of the 12 Principles of Animation. 12 Principles of Animation from Justin Zhou on Vimeo. Layering: A layer refers to different levels upon which you can place your drawings and objects (either stacked above or below each other). Top layers will obscure bottom layers (just like top items would block the things under them when stacking things in real life).
The layer menu panel on Photoshop looks like the example in the picture below. Character Design: Character design refers to the process of drawing each character for an animated film from multiple angles, which serves as a reference sheet for the animators of the film.
Below is an example of a character design sheet featuring Rapunzel from Disney's Tangled. Storyboarding: Storyboards are graphic organizers (in the form of illustrations or images) displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, etc.
Below is an example of a storyboard used to organize a scene from Disney's Finding Nemo. Key-Frames: A key frame in animation is a drawing that defines the starting and ending points of any smooth transition.
Tweens: Tween (short for "in-between") refers to the creation of frames of animation between key frames. Tweens are most commonly used in Flash (as shape tweening and motion tweening), where the user can define two key frames and Flash will automatically create the in-between frames. Below is an example of key frames and motion tweening using Adobe Flash CS5 and Final Cut Express. Stop Motion: Stop motion (sometimes referred to as stop frame) is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence.
Below is an example of stop motion animation created with Post-It Notes. Computer Generated Imagery: Computer Generated Imagery (or C.G.I.) refers to the application of computer graphics to create or contribute to images in art, printed media, video games, films, television programs, commercials, and simulators.
Below are 10 of the most influential landmarks of C.G.I. in movie history (arguably). Foley: Foley is the reproduction of everyday sound effects (sometimes via using unusual props) hat are added to film, video, and other media in post-production to enhance audio quality. Foley can be described as the art of recording post-production sound effects in real time to match the picture.
Below is an example of Foley being used to imitate a variety of basic sounds. Rig Frame Rate Breakdown |
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