Follow-through and Overlapping Action
Jaden McGrath 11/1/18
The fifth principal of animation is something known as follow-through and overlapping action. This principal of animation takes notes from Sir Isaac Newton's law of motion which i've paraphrased, "Every object that's at rest will stay at rest and every object in motion will stay in motion until a stronger force influences a resting object to move or a moving object to stop." One of the biggest examples of follow-through and overlapping action is when a car is accelerating at a very fast pace. When the car moves fast, your body wants to keep itself in place by sinking back in your seat until the car eventually decreases in speed just as fast which causes your body to fling forward a bit. This principal is definitely needed because without it, your animation will look stiff and just overall unnatural.
Overlapping action is what makes your animation have a natural look and feel which is something you definitely need. It provides your animation with the feeling of gravity, real world mechanics, and weight. There are cases where overlapping action can happen with body parts that can actually move by themselves. Like a tail for example which I got to try out when I was working on a ball and tail project. Sometimes it only moves when the rest of the body does, nut other times it tends to move by itself even if the rest of the body is not in movement at that moment. This happens with the anticipation or counter balance of a jump for example. Another example of practicing with overlapping action is yet another project I worked on earlier in the year which was a moving pendulum. Both the tail and pendulum movements uses follow-through and overlapping action to give the animation a more realistic and natural look.
When applying follow-trough and overlapping action to a character, any object attached to that character's body can be used as a really good source of overlap. This allows the animation to be loosened up and not be so wound tight. For example, a character's ponytail can mimic the head and bodies movements. Other good sources of overlapping action on a character are hair, earrings, props, and clothes as they add another layer of believability which makes the character stand out. but to be used properly, you need to make sure that the body and all of the main animation on it is already done. Any changes to the bodies animation afterwards will cause the overlapping action to be ruined and not work anymore. So if you're working on your animation and things begin to look a bit stiff, look over the situation and look for both large and small opportunities to add follow-through and overlapping action.
Just like both the articles on squash and stretch and anticipation, I found this article on follow-through and overlapping action to be quite informing and very well written. I didn't know much . about this particular principal of animation before reading but now I have a much wider understanding of what it is and how it can be used. I learned that the principal can be used on objects like clothes and even earrings. Like the previous two articles dealing with certain principals of animation, there really isn't anything in the article for me to disagree with. Although I feel like another animated film could have been used as an example instead of Eight Crazy Nights. That is a film no one should ever bring up. EVER!
As for questions, there really aren't any I can think of at the top of my head. The article was pretty straight-forward when it came to the subject matter at hand. I guess if I had to ask a question, it probably would be which method of practice would be easier for new-coming animation students to use? The swinging pendulum or the tail? Oh and why would you use Eight Crazy Nights as an example?! Anyways, both this article and subject are important to animation students and their animations because like said before, without it, the animation would just look all stiff, unnatural, and just boring in general. So it's important to both know about and use follow-through and overlapping action so that your art can look more appealing and believable.
The fifth principal of animation is something known as follow-through and overlapping action. This principal of animation takes notes from Sir Isaac Newton's law of motion which i've paraphrased, "Every object that's at rest will stay at rest and every object in motion will stay in motion until a stronger force influences a resting object to move or a moving object to stop." One of the biggest examples of follow-through and overlapping action is when a car is accelerating at a very fast pace. When the car moves fast, your body wants to keep itself in place by sinking back in your seat until the car eventually decreases in speed just as fast which causes your body to fling forward a bit. This principal is definitely needed because without it, your animation will look stiff and just overall unnatural.
Overlapping action is what makes your animation have a natural look and feel which is something you definitely need. It provides your animation with the feeling of gravity, real world mechanics, and weight. There are cases where overlapping action can happen with body parts that can actually move by themselves. Like a tail for example which I got to try out when I was working on a ball and tail project. Sometimes it only moves when the rest of the body does, nut other times it tends to move by itself even if the rest of the body is not in movement at that moment. This happens with the anticipation or counter balance of a jump for example. Another example of practicing with overlapping action is yet another project I worked on earlier in the year which was a moving pendulum. Both the tail and pendulum movements uses follow-through and overlapping action to give the animation a more realistic and natural look.
When applying follow-trough and overlapping action to a character, any object attached to that character's body can be used as a really good source of overlap. This allows the animation to be loosened up and not be so wound tight. For example, a character's ponytail can mimic the head and bodies movements. Other good sources of overlapping action on a character are hair, earrings, props, and clothes as they add another layer of believability which makes the character stand out. but to be used properly, you need to make sure that the body and all of the main animation on it is already done. Any changes to the bodies animation afterwards will cause the overlapping action to be ruined and not work anymore. So if you're working on your animation and things begin to look a bit stiff, look over the situation and look for both large and small opportunities to add follow-through and overlapping action.
Just like both the articles on squash and stretch and anticipation, I found this article on follow-through and overlapping action to be quite informing and very well written. I didn't know much . about this particular principal of animation before reading but now I have a much wider understanding of what it is and how it can be used. I learned that the principal can be used on objects like clothes and even earrings. Like the previous two articles dealing with certain principals of animation, there really isn't anything in the article for me to disagree with. Although I feel like another animated film could have been used as an example instead of Eight Crazy Nights. That is a film no one should ever bring up. EVER!
As for questions, there really aren't any I can think of at the top of my head. The article was pretty straight-forward when it came to the subject matter at hand. I guess if I had to ask a question, it probably would be which method of practice would be easier for new-coming animation students to use? The swinging pendulum or the tail? Oh and why would you use Eight Crazy Nights as an example?! Anyways, both this article and subject are important to animation students and their animations because like said before, without it, the animation would just look all stiff, unnatural, and just boring in general. So it's important to both know about and use follow-through and overlapping action so that your art can look more appealing and believable.
Comments
Post a Comment