Exaggeration Principle - Accentuating the essence of an idea via the design and the action
(Good Example)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u7ihJk6-lY (Ice Age)
This is a clip is good example of the exaggeration principle (although it also executes many of the other animation principles to perfection also). From 0.38 to 0.49 the character Scrat has to fight against the wind. To demonstrate to the audience the mass and rigidity of the character, Pixar have slowly caused Scrats face to crumple up, bend backwards and stretch, exaggerating the winds power through the way they have altered the design of the character.
(BAD EXAMPLE)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bETCusT5kNM (The Cat Came Back)
Another application of the ‘Exaggeration’ principle can be through the design of an animation. In ‘The Cat Came Back’ the exaggeration of the proportions of different objects is beyond unrealistic for style purpose. Looking at the above image, the man in relation to the chair is slightly exaggerated. However in comparison to the window and picture hanging on the wall, the character and chair look out of place.
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Secondary Action - the action of an object resulting from another action
(Good Example)
In this animation, several birds are pirched on a telephone wire. When a larger bird lands on the wire, the mass of the bird causes the secondary action of the wire drooping in the center. This is an excellent example of the Secondary Action principle because the wire drooping and the subsquent sliding of the smaller birds to the centre of the wire are both realistic results of the action.
(Bad Example)
Clearly the idea behind this scene is simple. The panda on the left punches the large bear and knocks him out with that punch. However because the ‘Secondary Action principle’ has been used badly, the quality of the scene is massively diminished. How it has been used badly is down to the timing. The punch connects at 38 seconds and before the 39th second the bear has fallen on the floor. The reaction is far too fast for even a deliberate form of exaggeration. Furthermore the actual impact is not shown. This clip is likely not only a bad example of the secondary action principle, but also of the ‘slow in, slow out’ principle due to the movement of both characters being far too quick.
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Follow Through and Overlapping Action - the termination of an action and establishing its relationship to the next action
(Good Example)
In this scene, the character Ichigo is sprinting, while his cape reacts to each turn and movement in a different way. By allowing for this, the animator complies with the Follow Through and Overlapping Action Principle – which is a description of the act of animating objects with a strong but nevertheless separate relation to another object (Ichigo and the cape).
(Bad Example)
In this example, the character Xiahou Dun is running across the battlefield at full speed, but yet his cape attachment moves in a somewhat limp and non-committal way behind him. This was often a fault with game animations of this era, and the fact that the studio had included a cape was an ambitious move for the time. Still despite this, it is the perfect example of the bad attempt of the overlapping and follow through principle – especially when compared with the movements of a cape in the good example.
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Staging – Presenting an Idea so it is clear
(Good Example)
Within a few moments of the animation starting both the setting and concept are established. Through using the tennis ball as the focus of the first ‘shot’, the animator has utilised the animation principle of Staging to capture the idea.
(Bad Example)
While staging means clearly presenting an idea (be it from an animator to the audience or a designer to a gamer) and this animation does clearly present its idea (in this case set the scene) the reason it is a ‘bad example’ is in the long, somewhat pointless way that the animators used the principle. It took 25 seconds for the seagull flying to reveal the ship as the focus – an obscenely long time. Furthermore within those 25 seconds, the animation focuses on ridiculous elements (hangs on the seagulls back for some seconds). In comparison to the clarity of the scene created in the Pixar short, it is clear how bad staging can cause an audience to lose interest.
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Appeal - creating a design or an action that the audience enjoys watching
Appeal is one of the hardest of the principles to compare and contrast good and bad examples. The easiest way I found was by looking at a popular, high budget animation in comparison with an animation made by a low budget studio that was essentially plagiarising the concept. By doing this, the appeal of the professional one would in theory become clearer. And indeed it does.
Ratatouille mixes dynamic action sequences, comedy and a general pristine animation quality to appeal to its audience (children and animation fanatics). This is evident in the screenshot and at any point through the trailer.
Ratatoing on the other hand lacks quality, universal comedy and does not seem to really create any level of dynamic, attention grabbing scenes. The backgrounds are lifeless and bland and in general it does not have what any good, appealing animation has. A clear vision of imagination realised. Animations can have Aliens, dinosaurs, crazy worlds and they are all made with a clear vision. Ratatoing seems to have been made just to imitate the story, plot and characters without any kind of vision.
I would say that to achieve the Appeal principle you would have to be able to successfully integrate two things; the other animation principles and imagination. When all that is include the Appeal will be there in one way or another.
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Personality - in character animation is the goal of all of the above
(Last Window: Secret of Cape West)
Oddly enough, Last Window is probably on the borderline between animation and image, making use of sprites to create small animations that could be tied together. But still it captures Personality far better than some better-crafted animations. This is because of the attention to detail of various slight movements to create ‘personalities’ within the game world. The developer took the necessary time to study various social interactions and managed to animate characters and personalities, not just simple images.
(The Frog Prince)
The Principle of Personality states ‘In character animation is the goal of all of the above’. In this clip a small patch (beginning at 4.08) achieves animation of the character, but with absolutely no personality or realistic movement – the character simply travels (not walks) up the screen. This just reinforces how important it is to use sources from real life and to take time to properly animate characters like their real life counterparts – else the time saved on not doing this will show through (like the above animation).
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Slow In and Out - the spacing of the in-between frames to achieve subtlety of timing and movement
(Good and Bad Example)
This great animation shows what happens when Slow In and Out is not used (0.6 – 0-12) and when it is applied correctly (0.30 Onwards) through a basic bouncing ball animation. The period where the ball is not using the principle means that it moves at a dull, un-dynamic pace that makes the object seem as if it has no mass. In fact the movement of the ball is similar to levitating than bouncing. However when Slow In and Out is applied, suddenly the mass of the ball becomes apparent to the audience and the objects movements appear much more realistic and lively. The video effortlessly describes the impact of the Principle on animation in general perfectly.
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Arcs - the visual path of action for natural movement
Natural movement is a key element to most animations, but often more so in the animated adaptations of Japanese Manga. The above images are from the Naruto anime, where dynamic fight sequences make full use of the Arc principle to make the fight moves seem realistic to their audience. The smaller image shows the arc of the arms as Naruto throws a punch and the larger images show the arc of his leg as he swings it around for a kick. On both of these occasions the limbs travel the natural path for such actions.
(Bad Example)
3.57
Burnt Face Man is an unprofessional quality animation which, while offering quality content and comedic value, does not have great animation. One of the reasons for this is bad execution of the Arc principle. The above example is just one instance during the series whereby the movements look far from natural and the use of arcs is almost replaced by angular movement. Of course while this does not take much from the quality of the animation in an experience sense, visually it has a huge impact that would likely have much larger repercussions on professional animations.
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Squash and Stretch Principle - defining the rigidity and mass of an object by distorting its shape during an action
(Good Example)
Squash and Stretch is one of the most fundamental principles of animations and this is shown by the fact that I found a perfect example within the 1928 Mickey Mouse Cartoon; Steamboat Willie. In the animation, Mickey Mouse pulls the horn and the above actions happen. First to symbolise the pipe filling with steam, the pipe expands in size before stretching out and expelling steam. Without the application of squash and stretch, the scene would have lost its dynamic nature.
Finding a bad example of squash and stretch was difficult as often animations would either use it well or not use it at all so in the end the example is one where squash and stretch is not used at all.
Looking back at the animation I chose as my example of good and bad for the slow in slow out principle, the first segment also disregards squash and stretch. Looking at the images above, the ball makes a connection with the floor. However, because it retains its shape at all times the ball does not seem to, as the shape would have to alter to represent the effect of impact with the floor. Normally it would do this by the squash and stretch method, but removing it effectively removes the audience’s belief that the ball is bouncing on the floor.
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Preparation
(Good Example)
Even the simple acts in animation require some small form of Preparation and this Felix the Cat advert shows how it makes a big difference by studying the preparation of real life objects as well. In the above images it shows how the cat stops, squashes itself up and then stretches itself out in the jump. These are realistic stages to the cats movement and without these, the animation quality would drop dramatically – like the below example.
(Bad Example)
Again, using Burnt Face Man as an example, where other animations might have the character bend his knees in preparation for flight, in Burnt Face Man he simply takes off with no preparation stage. This lack of the Preparation principle just adds to the overall sense of unpolished presentation visually to the Burnt Face man Animation.
