2 answers
Eryx
Student
Glendale, California
8
Questions
Asked
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What are some ways to practice posture and movements in animation?
I am having trouble and need help #animation
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2 answers
Mihaela Pavlova
Motion Graphic Designer
8
Answers
Sofia, Bulgaria
Updated
Mihaela’s Answer
For improving your animations skills and better understanding, and later recreate the movements and posture, you will need to understand and learn the 12 basic principles of animation.
Those principles are the most crucial techniques you must master as an animator.
Timing and Spacing: The number of frames between two poses, and how those individual frames are placed.
Squash and Stretch: The flexibility of objects to exaggerate or add appeal to a movement.
Anticipation: The setup for an action to happen.
Ease In and Ease Out: The time for acceleration and deceleration of movement.
Follow Through and Overlapping Action: The idea that separate parts of the body will continue moving after a character or object comes to a full stop and the idea that parts of the body will move at different times.
Arcs: The principle that smooths animation and moves action in a realistic way.
Exaggeration: The pushing of movement further to add more appeal to an action.
Solid Drawing: The accuracy of volume, weight, balance, and anatomy.
Appeal: The relatability (or charisma) of a character.
Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose: The spontaneous and linear approach to creating an action using many in-between poses along with the main poses, and the more methodical approach to creating an action using only a few poses.
Secondary Action: The actions that emphasize or support the main action of the animation.
Staging: The setting up of the scene, from placement of characters to the background and foreground elements, to how the camera angle is set up, the lighting and shadows, and more.
There are also some tips you need to follow to improve your characters animation:
Observe real-life characters - Observing people, how they interact, how they express themselves and even how they move around is essential in helping you gain a good understanding, not only of motion but also timing and weight.
Study the psychology of movement -To truly mimic someone you must first understand their movements, not only the process of motion but also in intention.
Always use real-world references
Form key poses first
Lead with the eyes - If you watch people as they go about their daily lives, you will notice that with each purposeful movement comes a specific sequence. First, the eyes move to where they want to go, and then the head follows and then the neck. This continues down the body until they eventually move to where their focus was drawn.
Study Gravity effect - Gravity affects everything. Walking, for example, is a simple movement - but much of how we move is dictated by our own physical build. If you are tall and thin then you may be lighter on your feet whereas someone with a fuller figure will have a heavier foot fall, with their waist dipping more as they then try to raise their upper body.
Time your characters movements
Keep your character balanced
Anticipation, action, reaction - When you break down every major movement it can be split into three main areas - Anticipation, Action, and Reaction. This principle works with many movements even with facial animation.
Offset your keys - For more natural movements. A good example of that is : Achieving the natural flow of an element dragging behind your character, like a tail, can be tricky. The root remains fixed to the pelvis but the motion then has to follow through to the tip like a wave. A quick way to achieve this movement is to animate the base, and then copy this animation to the rest of the joints. Initially, this will give them all the same action, but you can then go in and edit the keyframes on each joint, shifting them forward a frame or two. This essentially delays that initial action on the higher joints, giving you the wave-like motion.
Following these principles and tips, and trying to mimic movements over and over again will result in improving your animations.
My advice will be: try to recreate everyday live movement. Choose a model you can observe every day
( members of the family, your pet or just go outside and observe). Take notes, film people doing their things, go home and try to
recreate what you've seen.
Always try to improve your work.
Those principles are the most crucial techniques you must master as an animator.
Timing and Spacing: The number of frames between two poses, and how those individual frames are placed.
Squash and Stretch: The flexibility of objects to exaggerate or add appeal to a movement.
Anticipation: The setup for an action to happen.
Ease In and Ease Out: The time for acceleration and deceleration of movement.
Follow Through and Overlapping Action: The idea that separate parts of the body will continue moving after a character or object comes to a full stop and the idea that parts of the body will move at different times.
Arcs: The principle that smooths animation and moves action in a realistic way.
Exaggeration: The pushing of movement further to add more appeal to an action.
Solid Drawing: The accuracy of volume, weight, balance, and anatomy.
Appeal: The relatability (or charisma) of a character.
Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose: The spontaneous and linear approach to creating an action using many in-between poses along with the main poses, and the more methodical approach to creating an action using only a few poses.
Secondary Action: The actions that emphasize or support the main action of the animation.
Staging: The setting up of the scene, from placement of characters to the background and foreground elements, to how the camera angle is set up, the lighting and shadows, and more.
There are also some tips you need to follow to improve your characters animation:
Observe real-life characters - Observing people, how they interact, how they express themselves and even how they move around is essential in helping you gain a good understanding, not only of motion but also timing and weight.
Study the psychology of movement -To truly mimic someone you must first understand their movements, not only the process of motion but also in intention.
Always use real-world references
Form key poses first
Lead with the eyes - If you watch people as they go about their daily lives, you will notice that with each purposeful movement comes a specific sequence. First, the eyes move to where they want to go, and then the head follows and then the neck. This continues down the body until they eventually move to where their focus was drawn.
Study Gravity effect - Gravity affects everything. Walking, for example, is a simple movement - but much of how we move is dictated by our own physical build. If you are tall and thin then you may be lighter on your feet whereas someone with a fuller figure will have a heavier foot fall, with their waist dipping more as they then try to raise their upper body.
Time your characters movements
Keep your character balanced
Anticipation, action, reaction - When you break down every major movement it can be split into three main areas - Anticipation, Action, and Reaction. This principle works with many movements even with facial animation.
Offset your keys - For more natural movements. A good example of that is : Achieving the natural flow of an element dragging behind your character, like a tail, can be tricky. The root remains fixed to the pelvis but the motion then has to follow through to the tip like a wave. A quick way to achieve this movement is to animate the base, and then copy this animation to the rest of the joints. Initially, this will give them all the same action, but you can then go in and edit the keyframes on each joint, shifting them forward a frame or two. This essentially delays that initial action on the higher joints, giving you the wave-like motion.
Following these principles and tips, and trying to mimic movements over and over again will result in improving your animations.
My advice will be: try to recreate everyday live movement. Choose a model you can observe every day
( members of the family, your pet or just go outside and observe). Take notes, film people doing their things, go home and try to
recreate what you've seen.
Always try to improve your work.
Ava Adams
STEM Instructor, Teacher Assistant
10
Answers
Miami, Florida
Updated
Ava’s Answer
Hello Eryx,
Something about animation is that frequent practice, studying from real life, and researching techniques really helps with improvement.
For posture, what helps me is drawing both still life and something that's moving. This gives your poses a sense of liveliness and being mid-action, not as stiff. You can do this by referencing photos, drawing as you're watching a movie/video, or standing in front of a mirror or filming yourself as reference! Stylized references are also good, but it helps to know how something actually looks in the real world first to build your mental library and get the basic techniques. Learning basic anatomy (doesn't have to be the full muscular/skeletal structure just yet!) and gesture drawing will help you learn how the human body moves, so you can spend more time on getting the right pose.
For actual animation, the key for appealing motion are your key poses (which reflect the main actions or stages of what your character/object is doing) and your framerate (24 or 30 frames per second is standard for animation). If your animation software has it, you can enable a feature called onion skins, which overlays how your animation is changing from frame to frame. Scrubbing through your frames on the timeline also works, but onion skins makes it easier to see the before and after. If you want smooth motion, you usually want more frames to complete an action and very small changes between frames. For more dramatic or quicker motion, you use fewer frames and a bigger change. I also recommend filming yourself as animation reference, it's a very common technique that pros use and I've found it very helpful myself! You get to tailor your references to exactly the way you envision them.
Below I've linked some resources that I use to study and practice new techniques. I hope this helps, you'll do great!
How to Draw Gesture (Proko): https://youtu.be/74HR59yFZ7Y?si=m6iaHOBFt8uEexa3
12 Principles of Animation (Alan Becker): https://youtu.be/uDqjIdI4bF4?si=v_OfGkFVxTQGrAZX
Video Game Animation (Dan Floyd): https://www.youtube.com/@NewFramePlus
Something about animation is that frequent practice, studying from real life, and researching techniques really helps with improvement.
For posture, what helps me is drawing both still life and something that's moving. This gives your poses a sense of liveliness and being mid-action, not as stiff. You can do this by referencing photos, drawing as you're watching a movie/video, or standing in front of a mirror or filming yourself as reference! Stylized references are also good, but it helps to know how something actually looks in the real world first to build your mental library and get the basic techniques. Learning basic anatomy (doesn't have to be the full muscular/skeletal structure just yet!) and gesture drawing will help you learn how the human body moves, so you can spend more time on getting the right pose.
For actual animation, the key for appealing motion are your key poses (which reflect the main actions or stages of what your character/object is doing) and your framerate (24 or 30 frames per second is standard for animation). If your animation software has it, you can enable a feature called onion skins, which overlays how your animation is changing from frame to frame. Scrubbing through your frames on the timeline also works, but onion skins makes it easier to see the before and after. If you want smooth motion, you usually want more frames to complete an action and very small changes between frames. For more dramatic or quicker motion, you use fewer frames and a bigger change. I also recommend filming yourself as animation reference, it's a very common technique that pros use and I've found it very helpful myself! You get to tailor your references to exactly the way you envision them.
Below I've linked some resources that I use to study and practice new techniques. I hope this helps, you'll do great!
Ava recommends the following next steps: