Animation Learning

I've been setting some work for myself to complete during the holidays to keep my learning up to date. Over the following days I shall blog-post about 3 things. My learning of animation, the progress of my narrative, and my thoughts on this new book I received.

I've recently been learning about the qualities of animation in my free time, this included watching several videos on YouTube as well as some tutorials. 

One of these included an informative explanation of the 12 principles of animation by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas, re-explained by Alan Becker: 12 Principles Of Animation

Once I saw the video, I began working on the first principle, "Squash and Stretch". This is the rule that certain objects must sustain the same volume during changes of their shape. For example, say a ball fell to the ground, the ball will seem as if it's stretching, before hitting the ground and flattening, as well as taking a few more bounces before finally returning to it's original shape. In the process, though the ball seems as if it's stretching and flattening, the ball keeps the same volume. Unless something is growing or shrinking, the objects will have to shorten if adding on to it's width, or decrease it's width when it stretches it's length. I began working on an animation that emphasizes this value on Flipaclip:

This animation shows the differences of mass between two falling.... Spheres.... The first ball that falls from the screen probably has the mass of a bowling ball, while the other is more-likely to be something like a hand-ball. So that's my animation that supports the "Squash and Stretch (SS)" rule.

Once I had finished that, I began working on a more complex version of SS:

This includes an animation of a stickman jumping over a gap. The SS featured here is the stickman, widening as he crouches, before leaping and stretching their appearance, as well as looking as if they're keeping the same volume. Though, I'm unable too keep the same volume for some of my animations as I believe I'm not skilled enough yet. 

Well, this brings my blogpost to an end and I hope you learnt something new from it.