Learn how to apply the principle of anticipation to your animation.
So far, in my Into Motion course, we’ve been focussing on making objects move in a believable way. But we’ve not yet animated anything which feels alive.
When it comes to introducing that spark of life, there’s one animation principle which I believe is absolutely essential.
The principle of anticipation serves two key purposes in animation. It is used to build up the energy for a move, and to cue the audience into what is about to happen.
It’s the first of these which is so important for that feeling of life though.
Whilst all the principles of animation have a part to play in creating appealing characters, it’s only once we add anticipation that we really start to feel that a character is taking action on their own, rather than as a result of forces acting upon them.
Even with an object as simple as a ball, if it is seen building up the energy for a move, we can be in no doubt that it is acting by itself and that it has come to life.
Whilst we could have simply added anticipation to a bouncing ball, I feel it’s time for a fresh challenge.
In this next lesson of my Into Motion course, I’ll show you how to animate a toadstool jumping.
Working with the toadstool is similar in many ways to the bouncing ball but we now have far more control over the shape of our character.
This opens up a wider range of options when animating, whilst still keeping things extremely simple.
Whilst Blender can handle the playback of a bouncing ball on most hardware, as the characters you’re animating start to become more complex, things can start to slow down.
If we’re not careful, we can find ourselves animating without being able to accurately judge our timing.
To help prevent that, before we start to animate the toadstool, the first part of this lesson also covers ways to improve your playback performance when animating in Blender.
Even if you don’t need these tips to animate the toadstool, they could prove to be essential when you move on to more complex characters.
I hope you enjoy the lesson!
