The 12 Principles of Animation - Episode 2

Hello there!

Welcome.

To learn about...

The Second Principle - Anticipation

My only old animation on an unfinished illustration from 2020 that has anticipation... gross

The principle of anticipation, also referred to as antic, is... an interesting one to say the least. It's not really a technique of the same nature as squash and stretch that you add into your animation. Antic tends to come naturally, as it is present in every action to some degree. It's pre-action, the usage of small actions to indicate that bigger or main actions are about to occur, such as bending your knees before jumping. 

Utilising this principle correctly in your animation will:

1- emphasize the main action: anticipation gives strength and weight to the main action 

2- add aliveness, realism and believability: a subject without anticipation comes across as lifeless or weightless, like a puppet being controlled and pushed around by an invisible force

3- broadcasts intent: anticipation tells the audience where to look, what's going to happen and how different events link together. Without it, the audience might miss what happened

Challenges:

Anticipation is a bit tricky to comprehend, and the challenges that come with it seem to be just as tricky as well. The principle isn't about waiting for an action to happen, but about building up the required energy for an action while directing the audience. That is why these are some things that one must keep in mind for a successful use of antics:

Knowing when anticipation is needed  

- Although every action has some anticipation, you need to think about what you're animating regarding how much anticipation is needed. Because anticipation is about building up energy, it gives agency to an object. For example, a dropped ball will bounce a few times before gradually stopping on its place - it looks and feels inanimate and lifeless. But if the same ball now starts jumping by itself without external interference, the ball is reanimated into life. Anticipation movement is generated from the object itself, which is why it's recommended for living things - or inanimate objects that come to life.      

- Because of the ability to direct and guide the audience, anticipation also has an ability to mislead the audience. Imagine a golfer preparing for the first drive. The golfer, after carefully assessing the right angle of the club in relation to the ball, slowly raises the club, preparing to hit the ball. As the golfer is holding the pose, suddenly an explosion of unknown origin goes off behind them. Unfortunately, I do not have a visual presentation of this, but I believe our eyes would have been concentrated on the golfer and anticipating the swing of the club to hit the ball. 

...There is no right answer to how much anticipation is needed 

- Unfortunately, there isn't really any concrete rules for how much anticipation each and every action requires. But that doesn't mean we don't know anything at all - we do know something. Large actions, such as a character jumping very high vertically, usually need more antic. In contrast, small actions need only little. For instance, a character would only need to bend their knees a little for a tiny vertical jump. 

- Due to the lack of solid rules, I assume a good way to know the right amount is to study the animation action or look up or film a reference for the animation. 

Barbarossa spitting antic facts.

Practise exercises:

Head Turn

FPS: 24

Frames: 72

Here I attempted to use the little glance as an anticipation for the character turning his head. Far into animating this I realized I could've done something more obvious, but there was no turning back. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to add hair or shadows as this is only the third post on my entire blog... out of 13 or 14. Ironically this animation is indicative of how this course is going for me... Ahem.

Here are some tips and discoveries I made while animating this:

- The anticipation here is very small, a fleeting glance at the viewer. Because a glance could easily be merely a glance, I tried to signal the head turn by holding the glance longer and raising the character's eyebrows in curiosity. Hopefully I succeeded. 

- This isn't a tip. This is a cry for help. The eyebrows were a pain in the ass to animate, and even then, they look odd. If anyone has tips for animating eyebrows... I would be interested, please.    

Secondly...

Dripping Substance

FPS: 12

Frames: 48

Were you surprised by my drip? Bad jokes aside, I tried to build up anticipation with the substance slowly dripping from the glass and try to playfully mislead you. Because we know how gravity works, we assume the drops fall downwards. But what we don't necessarily assume is the drops coming back on-screen from above where they're dripping from.   

Tips and discoveries made while animating this:

- I first meant to animate this in 24fps. But when I saw how much the badly and inconsistently animated liquid affected the animation, I dropped the framerate to 12fps. I don't believe this is recommended in professional work, or in general, but luckily it worked out for the better here. Next time it's better to keep an eye on the consistency of the subject of animation!  

- Although the anticipation makes the substance feel real, the rest of the scene feels dead like the student interaction in a zoom class. In order to make the scene more alive, I should've probably made the main action - the substance dripping - as well as the glass and the table bigger to reduce empty space. Or animate the reflections on the glass or make it slightly roll on the table.  

Other great exercises for practising anticipation include:

- Punching motion: in order for someone to throw a punch with force, they need to pull their punching hand back first to charge enough power into it. This motion is the anticipation for the main action of punching

- Throwing motion: similar to punching motion

- Ball jumping by itself: if a ball were to start jumping by itself, it would look unrealistic for it to just launch in air. That's why the anticipation exists in a little squash against the ground before jumping in air - the bigger the squash, the higher the ball would jump

- Swing swinging: probably very self-explanatory, a swing swinging has a bunch of anticipation as each swing builds up energy for the next swing

I hope you enjoyed reading or even skimming through my blog. Feel absolutely free to comment more ideas or even share your own animations! I'd love to hear and see some of what you can come up with for practising this principle! And with that...

Thank you for reading and see you next post!