Hey guys, in the other forum post about the excersize animations we talked about having some kind of how-to guide for newby animators.

Nofby mentioned in the excersizes that we should add things like slow-in and slow-out's. Since a lot of people are new to animation, this is going to be where we post how-to's on animation.

So if your in a writing mood, post your guides here. Or post any links that are helpful.

I'll make an e-book that people can download from the How-To section after we get enough material.

Hey Mark, I'll be willing to put forward some stuff. Maybe different members can pick a subject to write on.

I'll be willing to do Ease in and ease out, as I brought it up. I don't mind writing about anything.

Do you want any specific writing on animation techniques or generally. As alot of people writing on it generally would take a long time but if we wrote about different specific things you could put it all together for a guide.

What do you think?

Hey Nofby, that's a good idea. It would be nice if each member could write one short tutorial on different parts of animation. Then I can turn it into the e-book. Well if anyone want's to here are some topics we could add:

anticipation

follow through

ease in and out

squash and stretch

timing

I'm going to be busy for a while since I'm making a puppet for someone right now, but I'll keep tabs of this thread as often as I can.

ANTICIPATION

An action happens in three parts:

1. the preparation for the action - which is anticipation
2. the action
3. the follow through

anticipation can be something that happens to attract the viewer's attention to the proper screen area and to prepare them for the action, e.g., staring at something before picking it up, or staring off-screen at something and then reacting to it before the action moves onto the screen. Anticipation can also be the physical preparation for the action, for example, bringing back your arm before you punch someone. 

This is what humans, or any animal for that matter, do before they do another action, it will make your animation look more realistic and professional.

I'm writing one now. About timing. Will do ease in and out if you want.

Nice job sidmjam, feel free Nofby to write about any topic you want and I'll add it to the book.

Timing

We have the art that can play relatively freely with timing. Going with fast timing of the action can give us a frantic look or rushed. And with animating a slow action we can get lots of slow arcs and beauty. When you use slow timing the audience can view the animation in more detail and give it a more realistic motion. Small little details can be animated that would be hard to animate if you were animating in fast time. Things like winces and very suttle facial movements can really pick up on the character animation and bring that extra little spark to what he audience are seeing.

 To give an example..... Corpse Bride ( Tim Burton's animated feature) contained lots of suttle close-ups of characters and when the animation was best shown in these parts were when the animation was at a nice, slow and relaxed pace. A brilliant example of this is where Victor sees the Corpse Bride for the first time and she slowly un-curls her shroud and lifts it up over her head, her face calm and her eyebrows raised as she anticipates (See other tutorial section) how Victor will react.

Now, back on track. To put timing to could use would be to try to sometimes stay away fom normal timing and either go a little too fast and switch to a little bit slow. Go for the change, the contrast, the slow against the fast. Its hard to detect in the actual viewing, but will add that little bit more to your animation.

Now onto the practical animation. Take the animation of a leaf blowing in the breeze. Mix the slow and fast timing to get the effect of gusts of differently forced winds making it flutter in different ways. It will flutter more at the top of the movement so animate that in faster time, with a quick little flutter at the top of the leaf to make it look like is curling over from the force a little.

Another example, the animation of a diving board or ruler being 'pronged' of a table. When the board goes down just before the diver  jumpes, it bends down slowly with the force being pressed onto it, but because the weight of the diver is un-equal to the tension of the board, when the diver relieves the weight, as he is about to jump, it springs him upwards and 'KASPLOOSH!' he dives into the water.  The board springs very fast upwards as he jumps and  keeps bending or vibrating as the divers feet leaves the board. If this was animated, you would animate the board springing up as the diver's feet leave the surface, then animate the up springs and after that gradually slower and the down-spring a little faster as the effect of gravity plus the tension of the board rattles it to a stop. The same fluttering effect can go for blowing clothes or long garments.

I will add more if needed.

nice job Nofby!

Thanks! I'm planning on doing two more. I'll have to see what Marc thinks of this one, and if I should do any more though.

Very nice Nofby, you really added a lot of detail! Since nobody claimed another topic it's ok if you want to write some more. If anyone wants to claim a topic speak now