- Appeal (Personality)
- Staging and Storytelling
- Solid Drowing and Posing: Volume, Structure. Correlation between characters with their emotion and action.
- Timing and Spacing: When and where it happens. Key frames.
- Arcs (One Version): Design, Posing( Drawing), Motion, Splines. Need clean.
- Slow in and slow out: For example:top of bounce., both ends of pendulum swings.
- Squash and Stretch: For example: people bend down. Give character a very cartoon personality.
- Straight ahead and Pose to pose.
- Anticipation (Expectation): A pause before main action. Starting position–anticipation(up and pause)–main action.
- Overlap: Things moving at different rates or speeds. Follow Through: Passing a target point due to momemtum either as whole or as apart.(for example squash and strech, can’t stop immediately)
- Exaggeration: Squash and stretch also be exaggerated.
- Secondary Action: It could be the character’s unimportant action like bobbing. Or something else in the scene. It doesn’t necessarily need to be attached to the character.
There maybe a little difference between 2D and 3D principle when evolving. For example: Disney’s 2D animation is obviously with pose to pose. But when doing 3D animation, the motion become softer. It almost feels a bit more like straight ahead.
12 principle is the most basic theoretical knowledge for people to explore how to make good animation at that time. With the development of technology and aesthetics, people also propose 21 foundations of animation . Style and method rebalances principles.