Approaches to Timing in Animation

There are many ways to approach animation and the timing of movements. There are many approaches other than fluid ultra-realistic motion. Many animators feel that the strength and the beauty of animation is in its interpretation and caricature of the real world and not in trying to directly mimic or duplicate reality. I suppose it is a similar argument to that of the world of painting. Most painters feel that photo realistic work is not as pleasing as work that contains more emotional aspects. After all, thats the province of photography to capture reality, a painting should e pose more of an interpretation rather than !ust to act as a mirror. And so it is with animation that the animator should bring to the art more than !ust an attempt to replace live action, e cept in the case of certain forms of "#I that are intended to be seamlessly integrated as a part of a live action production. $hythm in movement is usually not natural or realistic and yet in animation rhythm is so desirable. %ometimes to achieve rhythm the se&uence needs to be a !erkier and almost spastic motion with downward antics and upward thrusts. %ometimes you want a tick-tock way of moving which helps point up the rhythm of the scene and is needed to sell the gag. 'ther times you may choose to focus on e treme poses and facial e pressions. (ou also might prefer a style which emphasi)es characters constantly in motion, and able to change shape on a moment*s notice using +smear+ animation to get characters from one pose to another very &uickly. The point being that cartoon animation isnt !ust one style and there are many ways to animate. The important thing is to interpret, to e aggerate, to distort, and to caricature movement so as to being something more to your animation than !ust a direct copy of the photo-real world. %ome people seem to think that animation means moving all the time. Animation can use holds and still be animation. ,olds are an important part of timing. -erhaps the most essential parts of animation are drawing and timing. A single well done drawing, the pose, can convey attitude and emotion. where as the timing of a se&uence of drawings will give you weight and speed. "haracteristics can be conveyed by either the poses or the timing or both. A single great character pose drawing can be very e pressive. Timing involves two things/ 0. ,ow fast something moves. 1. ,ow long it doesn*t move. 2The holds3 The shortest amount of screen time for a hold 2or moving hold3 to register is 4 frames. 01 frames is enough time to read a facial e pression, but 04 frames are better if you can afford the screen time. 15 6rames is probably too long. 2These are screen times based on the standard 15 fps frame rate3 7ots of animators use the moving hold techni&ue to make a pose 8read9 but still give it life. The character can be held with one or two moving bits. eyes, ears, whiskers, hair or some sort of secondary foot or hand movement. 'r, a moving hold can be achieved by a really slow cushion into a pose for the e&uivalent duration of a static hold. "huck :ones was a master of the subtle moving hold where a character like ;yle "oyote would slowly stop and turn toward the audience and make a slight shifting of his eyes as if to say 8do you really believe this is happening to me9. $emember, from an earlier article, that an animation cushion is a term relating to the easing into or out of a pose. <y its very nature the spacing between drawings gets closer and closer as your cushion into the hold is created. ;hen animating, its desirable to use broadly spaced inbetweens and then cushion into a hold of a strong key pose rather than going past the key pose and coming back.

;hen animating an important principle to keep in mind is the principle of contrasts. "ontrasts e ist everywhere in nature and they should be prominent in your art as well. There are contrasting speeds, fast, slow, stationary. There are contrasting colors. There are contrasting shapes, and contrasting characters both in appearance and personality. And there are even contrasting scenes and camera angles. "ontrasts are what make things more interesting. %o look for opportunities to apply the principle of contrasts continuously as you work and certainly your approaches to the timing of motions is a great place to start.

How Do Movements Originate

%ome of the things we will be discussing here may seem very philosophical in nature. I often hear conversations relating to animating, particularly from people who are heavily focused on manipulating one software program or another, where they want to learn the 8steps9 in doing an animated action such as a walk or a head turn. It is only natural for someone to want to have a step by step recipe to follow. <ut animating isnt really about following a recipe. (es, there are techni&ues that can be practiced and basic rules of drawing and perspective that must be understood but eventually each animator must reach the conclusion that this craft of animating re&uires a thoughtful interaction between the animator and their creation. Im not saying that tutorials arent useful, but you have to appreciate the fact that most tutorials are basically step by step approaches and they only provide mechanical understanding at best. Im not against tutorials, I !ust want to provide a more complete perspective of learning to animate. %o thats why I try to address the thinking and philosophy behind things. Today, I want to discuss an important philosophical approach to understanding any action. =o you want to think about animating the form or the force> Think about that for a moment. ;hat motivates motion> =oes your arm move because it is an arm or does it move because some internal forces are being applied> 6irst there is thought, conscious or unconscious followed by the e pansion or contraction of muscles which produces forces that are translated into movement. -erhaps because we can easily observe the movement of forms we want to draw those forms. 6orces are for the most part not visible !ust the resulting effects of those forces are visible. (et it is the internal forces, like muscles e panding and contracting, or e ternal forces, like gravity or air resistance or inertia, that are actually responsible for movement. %o when you want to animate movement you need to understand and account for the forces first and let the forms follow as the visible result. ,eres an interesting way to think about this change in philosophical approach. ;hen you draw shadows do you think first about the form of the shadow or do you first think about the sources and directions of light that produce the shadows> 6orces have the same type of effect on the movement and distortion of forms. ;e will return to this approach often as we proceed.

Understanding Timing in Animation Part 1

;hen you begin to animate an action there are a number of planning steps involved. "ertainly as previously discussed one of those planning steps is to think about how you want to present the action. ;e might want to refer to this as our story telling approach. ;e

have some aspect of the story that we are going to communicate through the action we are going to animate and there are many possible ways to present this information. As an e ample, are we going to be close up or far away from the action> ;hat comedic or dramatic effects do we want to achieve> There are many possible alternatives and choices. ;e have to e plore these alternatives through our thumb nail visuali)ations. ?ventually we will decide on an approach and then we can begin to work on producing some key poses. The main key poses are also often referred to as 8e tremes9. Their basic definition is/ the farthest point that a part of the action moves before changing direction. These poses are normally generated from the sketches you have made during the thumb nailing stage of planning an action. If youre doing key pose animation, you are leaving some drawings in the action se&uence out and drawing !ust the e treme positions. (ou will come back to the inbetween drawings at a later time. ;ith key pose animation, you can do all the e tremes and then decide on the actual action timing later. In future discussions we will talk about the advantages and disadvantages of animating by going from key pose to key pose @% animating an action straight ahead. %traight ahead animation starts at drawing number 0 and then you do drawing number 1, then drawing number A and so on. The big difference is in the planning of the timing. ;ith straight ahead animation, you decide on the timing as you do each drawing. As you will eventually discover there are aspects of character animations that are best approached pose to pose and aspects that are best approached straight ahead. 6or the purposes of this discussion we will focus on pose animation and the timing of that approach to animating action. The sub!ect of timing for animation is very comple . I plan to e plore it slowly through a series of articles which will build on each prior article. As a preface there are technical aspects to animating and then there are the performance aspects. ;e will be starting mostly on technical aspects to build a foundation but eventually we will try to blend them together which is ultimately how you will work. <ackground <asics :ust to get everyone on the same page Ill start with some definitions of terms and concepts. A few additional drawing terms we need to establish beyond the notion of e treme drawings, are keys, breakdowns and inbetweens. As I previously mentioned 8e tremes9 are boundary drawings for an action. They denote the farthest point that a part of the action moves before changing direction. They are the first drawings that you would produce to establish ma!or starting and ending positions. Bey drawings are also important positioning drawings like e tremes they also establish significant points in a motion. The most influential keys inbetween e tremes are often referred to as breakdowns because they provide important information about how the action transitioned between the e tremes. They break down the action into a greater level of detail. The other transitional drawings between e tremes and keys are called inbetweens. The names aren*t of any great significance e cept that they give us a way to label a particular drawing in the se&uence when we are discussing them from an order of creation perspective. The terms keys and inbetweens are sufficient for most discussions. A key drawing does what its name implies. it provides us with key information about the action. Beys alone can give us a good sense of the action although they are usually not sufficient to provide as believable or as fluid an action by themselves. 'nce we have key drawings we will produce drawings inbetween those keys that will transition the action and provide the visual fluidity we want.

6ilm is physically divided up into a continuous series of static picture images each of which is called a frame of the film. ;e will use the term 8frame9 to mean a single picture image composed of one or more drawn elements. To create the illusion of motion our series of frames are presented to the viewer one at a time. The rate of change from one frame to the ne t, the speed at which the frames are presented to the viewer, is called the frame rate. 26-%3 The speed of an action is determined by the number of frames that are used to represent that action. The speed of presentation of those frames is controlled by the frame rate 26-%3. The frame rate is going to be a constant for your film so its only value is to be used as a tool for calculating screen time. (ou use the frame rate to convert time into frames. 8'n screen9 time is simply the amount of time an action is visible on the screen. 8'n screen9 time is determined by the number of frames used to represent an action. 6rame rate is only the tool we use to know that we need a specific number of frames to represent a specific amount of 8on screen9 time. ,ow much screen time we want to show for an action is its speed and that translates to some specific number of frames. The more frames used to represent an action the slower the action appears and conversely the fewer frames used to represent an action the faster the action appears, because it is on the screen less time. (ou dont change the frame rate to control the speed of an action. (ou change the number of frames used to represent the action. Technically, the two ma!or factors involved in timing an action are speed and distance, also often referred to as spacing. The speed of an action is determined by the number of frames that are used to represent that action. =istance or the spacing is the amount of change between those frames. If there is no change between successive frames then there is no distance or space between the frames. This is called a 8hold9. ;hen there is a significant change in appearance between successive frames that is a large space or 8gap9. ;hen there is a tiny, very small, change in appearance between successive frames that is a small space. ;e will refer to a uni&ue frame as a 8change9 and a non-uni&ue frame as a 8repeat9 or a 8hold9. %o the speed of an action tells us how many total frames we will need and the spacing tells us which and how many of those total frames are 8changes9 and which and how many of those frames are 8repeats9 and how significant the difference in appearance is between any two successive changes. 'ne way to slow down an action is to use more frames to represent this action and to speed up an action you will want to use fewer frames. This seems simple enough conceptually, but what does it really mean> %upposing I have a fi ed amount of screen time and therefore a fi ed number of frames to present this action, how then do I slow down or speed things up when I cant !ust change the relative number of frames> The answer is in the spacing. <y spacing successive drawings closer together I am in effect increasing the number of frames used and therefore I slow down the action. The smaller the space the slower the movement appears. "onversely if I broaden the spacing between successive drawings I am using fewer frames and the action is faster. The larger the space the faster the movement appears. %o having set boundary positions with key drawings I can determine the location, space wise, of my inbetween or inbetweens by evaluating how fast the transition between the keys should be. If the transition is constant then my inbetween will be half way between the keys. If the transition is accelerating then my inbetweens will be spaced closer to the initial key position to create a slow out that speeds up. If the transition is decelerating than my inbetweens will be closer to the second key to create an ease in that begins faster and slows down.

Therefore a significant part of our planning of the animation of an action, once we have determined the presentation aspects, is that we must decide on the on screen time and spacing of the action. 6rom the on screen time we will know the number of frames available and the spacing will then tell us how many of those frames need to be uni&ue and how significantly they change se&uentially. ?very action is different. Two separate characters will do the same action in completely different ways. In fact the same character may do the same action differently !ust based on circumstances. There are numerous determining factors. Things like the situation, the personality and mannerisms of the character, the characters environment, physical characteristics and the basic laws of nature and physics to name a few. %o, how does someone learn timing> I can think of three fundamental ways. (ou can learn timing through observation, through analysis and study, and through e perience. 'bservation is looking at similar actions in the real world and learning from your observations. Analysis and study is more focused on learning from others. 6or e ample watching lots of animated works frame by frame to analy)e how and why they were done that way. And e perience comes from actually sitting down and doing the drawings and making the ad!ustments as you work through creating the action. %o let*s !ust summari)e briefly. ;e have an action that will be presented on the screen for some determined amount of time. Csing the frame rate we will determine how many frames are needed to represent this on screen time. %ome of those frames will be change drawings either keys or inbetweens and potentially some of those frames will be repeats or holds. 'B, so having determined the total number of frames to represent our action we now have to create this action. ;hich frames will be key drawings> ;hich frames will be inbetween drawings> ;hich frames will be repeats> ;ill we always be using even spacing> ;ill we be using uneven spacing and if so when and why> ;hat is the process> There are many things that we will have to evaluate and consider like weight, e ternal forces, emotions etc.

Understanding Timing in Animation Part 2

-lease read Cnderstanding Timing in Animation -art 0 before continuing <ecause timing is such an important part of an animated presentation, one of the best planning tools for any animator is a stop watch. (ou can get a great stop watch for estimating the timing of actions for less than D0E at most discount stores. %ome people think they need a special 8animator*s9 stop watch which has built in calculations for film footage andFor frames, but this isn*t really needed. 6ootage is actually another way of representing the amount of time that something is shown on the screen. =epending on the si)e of the film stock used, you can calculate the number of feet or fractions of feet used to present a specified amount of screen time. <asically instead of saying something lasts on the screen for 04 frames at 15 6-%, you would say it lasts for 0 foot of AGmm film length. The length of film footage created per week has been used historically in many studios as a method of measuring production output. 6ootage is not a big deal in computer animation, we dont think in terms of film stocks, and all that you need to calculate the needed number of frames is to know the 6-% constant for your movie and then multiply it by the number of seconds or fractions of a

second that you decide represents the action. :ust remember you cant have a fraction of a frame, so everything is rounded to the ne t whole frame. 'nce you determine the speed, the spacing is largely a matter of intuition and visuali)ation that comes from lots of practice and e perience. Most animators come to understand and appreciate that the 8pencil test9 is a ma!or often repeated step in the process of ad!usting an actions timing. 6ortunately 8pencil tests9 are &uick and easy to perform in the computer world. ?ach timing problem is uni&ue and there are no simple formulas, its primarily a process of trial, ad!ustment and e perience. ;e will soon learn how to create and use 8timing diagrams9 which graphically represent the number of frames used and their relative spacing. An older term for these diagrams, which I also like, is to call them railway diagrams because they resemble a sort of train track. In a comple bit of character animation you will potentially create a number of different timing diagrams because there are many concurrent timing problems associated with the various parts of the performance. <ut there are more basics to cover before we layer on that comple ity. $hythm and <eats/ Most timing of actions is based on rhythm. As animators we often learn to get a feel for the timing of an action by humming a little sort of rhythmic beat like 8dum-de-dum9. Many animators tap the end of their pencils on their desk to get a feel for the beat. ,ere is a great trick I recently learned to use as a training aid for getting a better feel for timing rhythms. ;e can call these rhythm tests. 6or this e ample we will set up a movie time line with two seconds worth of frames. ,ow many frames is that going to re&uire> The answer is that it all depends on the presentation frame rate. 'ur chosen frame rate is 15 6-%. %o how many frames do we need for a two second time line> The answer is 1 seconds H 15 6-% I 5J frames. %o now we can visually simulate all kinds of timing rhythms by !ust creating a frame with a black matte that covers the entire movie screen. Then we can place additional copies of this black matte frame at some regular intervals along our timeline. 6or this e ample we will put one every 01th frame starting with frame 01. %o thats frames 01, 15, A4, and 5J. Kow go back and fill in all the other frames preceding each 8black9 frame with a blank frame or a 8white9 matte frame. Kow you can publish the movie and you will have a timing rhythm that 8flashes9 a black timing frame every half second. #et the beat> Csing this same techni&ue you can set up different timing patterns and then observe them. Its a neat way to develop a good sense for the various rhythms of timing. 01 beat timing Animation timing is often e pressed as having particular beat, like 1E beat or 01 beat or J beat. ,eres how that comes about. ?ach piece of music has a timing signature. Time signatures tell you how many and what kind of notes per measure there are. The number on top is the number of notes per measure, and the bottom number is what kind of note. A measure is a pattern of a group of beats. It is very common to find measures having groups of two, three or four beats. 1 F 1 means 1 beats per measure, A F 5 means A beats per measure, and 4 F J means 4 beats per measure. The bottom figure represents the particular note that receives the beat. Music written in A F 5 timing represents that each &uarter note gets a beat and that there are A such &uarter notes in each measure.

6or our purposes here we want to relate beats per measure to frames. Assuming that 0 second of time is e&ual to 0 measure or bar of music, then our musical measure would e&ual 15 frames at a frame rate of 15 frames per second. If the music is played at 1 beats per measure then frames 01 and 15 receive the beat. If the music is played at 5 beats per measure then the beats would fall on multiples of frames 0, L, 0A, and 0M. Therefore, 5 beats per measure has a beat every 4 frames. If the music is played at A beats per measure the accent frames are multiples of frames 0, M, and 0L. Therefore A beats per measure has a beat every J frames. And if the music is played at 4 beats per measure the accent frames are 0,G,M,0A,0L, and 10. Therefore 4 beats per measure is one beat every 5 frames. A metronome, also a great animators tool, can be used to give us timing in beats per minute. %o for e ample with the metronome set at 01E bpm 2beats per minute3 that translates to 01E beats F 4E seconds or 1 beats per second or a beat every 01 frames. Thats the same as saying the timing is 1 beats per measure. ,ere are some useful relationships based on metronome settings/ 5E bpm N 0 beat every A4 frames 4E bpm - 0 beat every 15 frames JE bpm N 0 beat every 0J frames 01E bpm N 0 beat every 01 frames 0JE bpm N 0 beat every J frames 15E bpm N 0 beat every 4 frames An easy calculation method is/ 2total framesFmin.3 F 2total beatsFmin.3 I framesFbeat 2055E framesFmin3 F 201E beatsFmin3 I 01 framesFbeat or 0 beat every 01 frames %ome general rules for animation timing are/ 6ast action is 0 beat every J frames often referred to as J beat Moderate action 2march time or walk time3 is 01 beat or 0 beat every 01 frames %low action is 1E beat or 0 beat every 1E frames 1E beat timing %o now that you can relate musical beats to screen time, you will understand if someone says +that action should be a 0E beat+ e actly what they mean. %et your metronome for a 0E beat which is 055 bpm and you have the rhythm for the action. To add variety to your timing you shouldnt accent each beat visually but instead you can use variations like accent !ust before the beat, or e actly on the beat, or between the beats, or ignore the beats entirely, or only accent significant beats. $emember variety is what keeps the animation more interesting. <y the way if youre animating to a musical score you may find that the beats hit the frames a little differently then based on a measure being e actly 0 second. $emember musicians are only human and their timing isnt that precise so listen to a stretch of the

music and find the average beat because that will be what you want to work from. 6ortunately there is software that can help you with this determination. <eats are used for more than !ust timing actions, you can get some really nice results if you learn to plan and time your cuts according to beats as well. More to come...

Understanding Timing in Animation Part 3

Cnderstanding Timing in Animation -art 0 Cnderstanding Timing in Animation -art 1 In Cnderstanding Timing in Animation -art 1 we mentioned the use of timing diagrams. These are simple graphic charts that animators use to describe the timing of an animated action or part of an action. Timing diagrams are very common place in e amples of how to animate and seem relatively simple, but from e perience with many people new to animating I have found that their creation and usage is not well understood. %o I want to spend a little time talking about the basics of how a timing diagram is created and used.

6I# 0

This first e ample of a timing diagram 26I# 03 is the most basic form. It shows two keys 0 and A with a single inbetween 1. The vertical bar is the time line 2it could be a hori)ontal line or even a curved line3. It !ust represents a segment of time by its length. The amount of time it represents is determined by the frames which are shown as numbered cross hash marks and of course the frame rate of presentation. %o this e ample is three frames at 15 fps or 0FJth of a second. The spacing between frames is indicated by the physical distance displayed along the time line between each pair of frame marks. %o in this e ample the drawing at frame 1 is half way spaced between drawing 0 and drawing A. ;hat that is telling the animator is that when heFshe creates this inbetween the rate of change between frame 0 and frame A is e&ual and constant.

FIG 2

The ne t e ample 26I# 13 is similar to the first e ample. It shows five frames of drawings. 6rames 0 and G are the keys. 6rame A is a half way breakdown. And frames 1 and 5 are also halfway inbetweens. The rate of change between drawing 0 and drawing A is constant. The animator would draw the frame A inbetween drawing first after having drawn the frames 0 and G. Then the animator would draw frame 1 using frames 0 and A as references and then frame 5 using frames A and G as references.

6I# A

'ur ne t e ample 26I# A3 shows acceleration. 6rames 0 and 5 are the keys. 6rame A is a halfway inbetween. <ut frame 1 is a half way inbetween for frames 0 and A which means that the change following frame 0 is placed to create a slowing out which accelerates between frames A and 5 because of the greater degree of change indicated by the larger gap.

FIG

This ne t e ample 26I# 53 is !ust the opposite and shows a deceleration. 6rames 0 and 5 are the keys. 6rame 1 is a halfway inbetween. And frame A is a half way inbetween for frames 1 and 5 which means that the change following frame 1 is placed to create a slowing into frame 5. There is a deceleration between frames 1 and 5 because of the e tra drawing which creates a closer spacing which produces a slowing effect.

FIG !

%o far all of these e amples have used half way inbetweens which means that each inbetween is relationally balanced with respect the preceding and following drawings in the se&uence. This is not always the desired situation. %ometimes we want an inbetween to 8favor9 either the preceding or following drawings. This ne t e ample 26I# G3 shows the use of a favor inbetween which is only fractionally changed from drawing 0. Then there is a speed up indicated by the large gap to frame A.

FIG "

If you look again at 6I# 0 and 6I# 1, both of these diagrams indicate a constant rate of change, but you should notice that because the 6I# 1 diagram has two additional inbetweens its action will be slower than the 6I# 0 diagrams action. <ut suppose we wanted our action to still have a constant rate of change but be faster than 6I# 1 but slower than 6I# 0. ;e can indicate this type of action by using 8thirds9 instead of 8halves9 for our inbetweens as shown in 6I# 4. This spacing still indicates a constant rate of change between keys 0 and 5 but by having an additional inbetween as compared to the figure 6I# 0 diagram we get a slower action but not as slow as indicated by the 6I# 1 diagram. This can be an issue if the action looks like it is moving too fast with only one inbetween but also too slow with three inbetweens. The difficult part is finding the 0FArd position between the two keys for the first inbetween. The second inbetween would then !ust be a half.

FIG #

'ur last e ample 26I# L3 is a 8slow out9 to a constant speed to a 8slow in9 diagram. All the inbetweens are halves relative to their preceding and following drawings. ;e are

accelerating out from drawing 0 and decelerating into drawing M, while the action is moving at a constant speed in the middle. Two additional notes are that if we had static hold drawings or wanted to show e posures of 1s or As for e ample, we would !ust indicate that by the numbers used for the frame numbers on the chart. An omitted frame number indicates a repeat e posure. Also, some animators like to indicate the relative order of creation of the drawings by using longer hash lines for the drawing to make first and progressively shorter hash lines for the later drawings. A circled drawing number indicates a key. Kow that we have a better understanding of the meaning of these e ample timing diagrams, we will be ready in the ne t part of this series to begin talking about timing and how we translate some physical worlds effects into our timing charts.

Understanding Timing in Animation Part

Cnderstanding Timing in Animation -art 0 Cnderstanding Timing in Animation -art 1 Cnderstanding Timing in Animation -art A Movement is essentially the cartoonists greatest tool for producing dynamic energy. "lassical cartoon personality and energy comes from e aggeration and distortion in movement. ;hen a ;arner <ros. 7ooney Tunes character moves, they don*t move like a real person they move in highly e aggerated and distorted fashion. They s&uash and stretch all over the place. ;hen they run, parts of their body move at different rates of speed and they go through distortions and contortions that are anything but realistic, yet they are totally believable in a cartoon world. 'ne of the first guidelines toward how to develop energy in a cartoon is the recognition that we want it to be believable not necessarily realistic. <elievable means we have to, for the most part, honor and account for the laws of nature and physics. Thanks to %ir Isaac Kewton there are three laws that are well defined that govern most motions. 203The first law is the +law of inertia+. An ob!ect at rest tends to stay at rest and an ob!ect in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. %imple stated if something is moving it is going to continue to move unaffected until some force or other ob!ect is encountered. 'r, if something is stationary, it will remain stationary until some force is applied to get it moving.

213 The second law states that the acceleration of an ob!ect is dependent upon two variables - the net force acting upon the ob!ect and the mass of the ob!ect. Kewton*s second law provides the e planation for the behavior of ob!ects upon which the forces do not balance. The second law states that unbalanced forces cause ob!ects to accelerate with an acceleration which is directly proportional to the net force and inversely proportional to the mass. This one is telling us that big heavy ob!ects dont move as fast or as easily as smaller lighter ob!ects. It takes more to slow down a charging bull then to slow down a charging mouse. It is very much in play when we are deciding how to show the acceleration or deceleration of an ob!ect. 2A3 Kewtons third law/ +6or every action, there is an e&ual and opposite reaction.+ ;hen you fire a gun you feel the recoil.

Kewtons laws are telling you that if you want to be believable than +may the forces be with you.+ The important concepts for creating believability all center on visuali)ing and using the effects of the forces at work in your cartoon world. Kotice I didnt say in the 8real9 world because some of the funniest things in cartoons follow physics that has been e aggerated or !ust plain ignored. ;yle "oyote hangs suspended in space over that canyon for a lot longer than an ob!ect would in reality, but it is the anticipation of the drop and ;yle*s facial recognition of the upcoming pain that is so classically cartooney. %o some laws are meant to be stretched for comical effect. Kow you all have seen or heard people refer to using a +line of action+ in establishing a character*s poses. And you may have heard them say it needs to be a +strong+ line of action. <ut usually that*s about it. $arely does anyone ever really e plain what +strong+ is referring to or how these lines of action relate from pose to pose in their animations. The

line of action in an animation se&uence is directly reflecting the ma!or influences of the forces at work. ,ow the line twists and bends, snaps and recoils is all force driven. If you want to really capture energy in your actions !ust begin by animating the main line of action throughout the entire se&uence. Then you can go back and begin to add the actual characters structure on top. <ut don*t make the mistake of trying to draw a full character pose and then another full character pose and then another full character pose and think that your animation will have a good flow or energy. Think in terms of ma!or forces at work and use the line of action to capture and reflect those forces. Then think of the minor forces at work and you will capture them as drags overlaps and secondary actions. 'ne useful approach to creating great poses is to work across a series of poses in an iterative manner. ;hat that means is, that you do the main lines of action first for all the key poses and then make a second and third and even forth pass through those poses picking up and adding the lesser but e&ually important forces at work.

Illustrations are fro)en on a single snapshot. animations are e pressed in time across a se&uence of images. %o you want to create them across a se&uence of images moving back and forth through the se&uence in small steps building the action as you go. This way, long before your se&uence will look like <ugs <unny or whomever you*re animating. it will capture the essence of the action with lots of fluid energy. The application of forces to ob!ects is at the heart of timing in our animation creations. Therefore all your observations in planning how to animate an action need to include applying Kewtons laws. The audience e pects things to behave according to the physical laws of nature and if you dont show that in your timing of actions, the audience will instinctively detect and re!ect that aberration with the one e ception that they will accept and laugh at variations that are obviously created to add to the gag being presented.