7th session onwards

This week we starting animating with my favourite rig thus far. It's a robot rig that allows for a lot of move and expression. We started by animating the robot turning, noticing something and then waving. After which I animated a simple running cycle because I felt it would be fun to do so with this rig.

The next session we went about animating a punch. This also taught us how to use references as we first found a clip of a punch and then we had to animate that punch. This was very good practise and it allowed us to learn what makes a good reference and what isn't. I used a tutorial video for my reference as I thought due to the person trying to teach a punch, everything would be shown very clearly. (This is the video and where the clip that I used is in the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvKTWDs6YHs&t=47s)

 The week after we learnt about constraints, we had the robot rig pick up a sword off the ground, with the sword being unconstrained and then when the robot picked it up, the sword being constrained to the robots hand.

However, I did not like how this animation looked and I also wanted to make my own sword model, so I practised using constraints in my own time and made an another animation inspired by The Witcher.

After this session we were starting to focus on our show reels using previous animations as well as more complicated animations, I included the above sword draw, as well as this longer fight sequence that I made based upon the Matrix. 

Throughout the sessions, sprinkled about, we also learnt how to rig, bone and skin weight models which will be useful for sessions to come.

Fifth and Sixth Sessions

During these two sessions, we used one rig, Floury, to create a walk cycle. I especially enjoyed using this rig as I was able to get a lot of character into the animations using this rig. I enjoyed giving him a lot of character. At this point some of the principles was starting to click with me and I was finding creating animations more and more easy. This was the first animation I was properly satisfied with.

Fourth Session

In this session we practised follow through. This was done using a rabbit-like rig and to practice follow through via the ears. Getting the poses and timing right on this animation was difficult however I feel with a bit more time it would become better. I enjoyed creating the ear movements however.

Third Session

In this session we used a ball and chain to practise the principle of overlapping animation. First we had to rig the model by parenting the ball to the chain and then creating links upwards. This will enable us to move chain link to move all those below. I had difficulty with the timing of this animation , thus why it looks janky, however I feel like the posing went well.

Second Session

In this session, we went about animating a ball bouncing. Through this we used principles such as squash and stretch, as well as timing. We started by making the ball bounce at the appropriate heights and then went on to add squash and stretch and then added the final touch of making it travel over a distance.

The 12 Principles of Animation

Within Animation, any kind of animation, it is best to follow the 12 principles of animation, this set basic guidelines to always include that will ensure that animation can be held to a higher quality.

This animation of mine shows several of these principles:

The first principle this shows is Squash and Stretch. This is an important principle of animation as it can show the weight of an object as well as a clue as to what the object could be made out of, for example, a soft rubber ball is going to squash a lot more than a hard bowling ball. A key thing to keep in mind with this principle is to ensure that the volume always stays the same, so if it gets shorter, it must also get wider, if it gets taller, it must get thinner.

The second principle this shows is Anticipation. This is when the object performs an action that is in anticipation of a following action, this is shown in the cube above as it squashes down in preparation to jump into the air. This can also be shown in other areas, such as pulling back an arm before it punches forwards. This can also be used to show the power and effort behind an action.


Staging isn't shown in this animation but it is a principle, staging is when an action or item is exaggerated to draw attention to it, for example, if a character is about to get something out of their pocket, raising their hand above their pocket for a moment before taking out the object would be an example of staging.

The next principle is Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose. This refers to the type of animation, Straight Ahead will animate frame after frame in order whereas Pose to Pose will do the key poses first and then do the in-betweens. Both have their strong and weak points however Pose to Pose is generally better as it allows for cleaner and well timed animations.

The next is Follow Through and Overlapping Action. This enables the animator to animate things such as hair and legs. It means that if a head is moved, the hair must be moved too but must be accurately moved a frame or so after the head.

The next is Slow in and Slow Out. This represents how objects move in real life, they will begin slow and speed up and then to stop they will slow down.

The next is Arc. Almost everything moves in arcs, without these arcs you get very robotic movements.

Secondary Action is used to give characters more life, however this secondary action should add to the scene, rather than draw attention away from the main action.

In animation, Timing is very important, and so this means how many frames/seconds are giving to an action as this will often influence how an action looks.

Exaggeration is important in animation as making an animation look 100% accurate will often make it appear static whereas adding exaggeration can even make the animation look more realistic. Exaggeration can also be used to emphasise certain aspects of characters.