... Anticipation

The use of anticipation prepares the audience for the next action about to occur and is generally only a couple of frames in length. Combined with exaggeration, in animation form, the motion is often more obvious however in real life movement there is anticipation e.g as a person goes to walk forward their body leans forward, as when a dancer is to jump off the floor, their knees bend first in preparation for the move.

In the example included of a baseball being thrown, the ball does not just leave the throwers mitt, his whole body moves in anticipation for the action, moving backwards then lunging forwards while his legs and hips move also before the ball has even left his hand.

Slow in Slow Out

 

Slow and Steady

The movement of the human body, and most other objects, needs time to accelerate and slow down. For this reason, an animation looks more realistic if it has more frames near the beginning and end of a movement, and fewer in the middle. This principle goes for characters moving between two extreme poses, such as sitting down and standing up, but also for inanimate and moving objects.


Animation without Slow In and
Slow Out between the key frames appears abrupt, mechanical, and stiff.

Slow In and Slow Out also
relates to the weight or mass of an object. An oil tanker takes longer to get up
to full speed and longer to stop than a speedboat will.

Let us see how the Big Boy camp did..



the Big Man has gas!

Follow Through and Overlapping Action//.

In animation, certain parts of an animation must keep moving even after the main action has completed, for example:

when a woman swings her head, her hair continues moving after she stops moving her head, and this hair motion may continue even as she begins her next action.

Apparently not only women flick their hair... rats do it to:

Arcs Baby!

Arcs

To achieve greater realism in animation, the animator must understand movements that occur in real life.

Lots of living creature’s movements occurs along arcs.

By realistically interpreting these arcs the animation will gain fluidity.

Arc Examples:

Throwing a ball
Golf club swing

Gazelle jumping

Exaggeration

Because animation, despite the technological advances of CGI these days, still doesn’t quite mimic the reality of emotion on a character unlike a live action piece could, exaggeration is used to characterise it. There needs to be an element of balance within it to avoid too unrealistic actions, comedy when not intended or just general “over animating”, but if done well the audience understands the emotion as it is intended.

The example of exaggeration using Cartoon Network’s Road Runner and Coyote demonstrates the use of exaggeration where appropriate for its intention. The frantic leg spinning of the chasing Coyote, the smoke billowing from the feet of the Road runner, the coyotes tongue hanging out and his eyes bulging in excitement of catching his prey creates the comical element the makers were after, where as if Cartoon Network hadn’t exaggerated and decided to be as realistic as possible, well… that would be just down right boring and seemingly emotionless on both character parts.

Exaggeration: Road Runner and Coyote - Cartoon Network