I am not a super duper experienced animator and I don't feel very comfortable talking about this subject nor defying what the old masters have said in the golden days as I am, myself still trying to understand the principals of animation.
However, in my short experience I have developed some thoughts about this subject.
What follows may sound a bit like rubbish as they are just thoughts of a young guy... but what the heck?!
I remember the first time I saw a list of the Principles with a detailed explanation of each one and I though : "This is complicated!", and even now I still think they are a bit complicated.
Everyone as his or her take on the Principles.
If you open "The Illusion of Life" you'll find a list of 12 to 14 Principles.
The other day I found a guy who had list of more than 20...
They were all good points but, my problem is that if I think of all those things at the same time and try to fit them all at once in my work, I'll probably go crazy.
The funny thing is that one of the Principles is SIMPLIFY.
If animators simplify their work so that the audience can understand it, why can't they just simplify their Principles?
That is what I'll try to do here with my own simplified version of the Principles!
I'm not going to say: "Forget the animation Principles that you red before!" That would be just stupid.
However, what I am trying to say is this: "Think about The 3 Kings and use the rest to support them."
"The 3 Kings? What the heck is that?"
The 3 Kings:
Poses
Timing
Spacing
For me this is the core of good animation. It's what I think about when I'm animating.
How I get there is when all of the other principles come into play.
You see, I'm not really throwing away the squash and stretch, the silhouette, the staging, ease in ease out, etc.
I fit all of that inside these 3 kings.
I'm just build a core so that every thing I learn works to straighten it.
It is a structure to keep things organized in my head so that I don't have to think about a million things at once.
Maybe this is just nonsense...words of a not very experienced animator trying to understand the craft.
later :)
Ricardo Silva
2 comments:
I hear what you're saying-- the more you animate the more second nature all of the prnciples will come to you. It's like drawing, you don't necessarily think about the principles of perspective and straights and curves you just do it from years of practicing them and from instinct.
It seems like it's too much to think about right now, but the more you do it the more natural it'll become.
It seems with anything that is true that it becomes better over time. Like wine. The more i learn, the less I realize i know and thus things like the Illusion of Life become more valuable to me over time.
Just keep trucking!!
Whether people agree with you or not dude, I dont think anyone should be afraid to question and enquire! So dont stop.
And what u said makes sense, especially for someone starting out. I reckon learn the very basics. Then, start fine tuning with extras. Kinda like martial arts. The advanced techniques all come from the basics. Same as playing guitar. Advanced playing comes off the basics...
Urm...
anyhoo cool blog! will be back. Or should I say, Ill be back to your new blog...
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