Animating Both Old and New School

Over the past several months I've been whipping my digital 3D art skills into serious shape, and recently I've shifted my focus to animation. Over the years, it seems I've taken a crack at every kind of animation-oriented software you can imagine, be it from Milkshape to 3DS Max, or from Clickteam's products to those of Adobe… but now as I tinker and familiarize with the animation idiosyncrasies of Lightwave Layout, I find that the challenge of my focus is not simply on what or where to click. Admittedly, what a lot of people don't know about animation is for it to be truly effective, as with any art, established time honored principles must be acknowledged. Animation has to to maintain a performance that represents elements of reality through the building of image sequences that the viewer seamlessly interprets as motion, regardless of artistic style. While it's very important to know or understand the varying features and functions of any modern tool or application, it’s equally important to look back and learn from what the masters and pioneers have established in any given field. In regard to such orthodox foundational animation rules (or 'The 12 Principles' as they are most commonly known) below are a couple of recent exercises in which I play with several such concepts including 'Anticipation', 'Squash & Stretch', 'Arcs', 'Slow In & Slow Out', as well as others.




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