3 important things I need to improve in animation.

So I've been told recently that my main weakness in animation is the following 3 things, all of which also happen to be incredible important principles of good animation:

1. TRACKING
2. movement change-1 frame transition
3. I'm too slow

The easiest of these for me to go through quick and fix up is the speed one. It won't be too bad for me to go through a few key points and just speed it up a bit. There is especially one shot where I try to make the character jump and it just look terrible. It's really all about timing.

As for tracking, this is really all about watching the hips and make sure the motion, as a whole, look not only smooth and fluid, but also pleasing to the eye. It's another issue related to speed, in a small part. For example, I have many parts in my movie where the character is moving from point A to point B. If he is accelerating to point B, then he needs to move towards it faster and faster. But my character will occasionally move at a constant rate, which is boring or he will vary his speed, which ends up looking weird. The same with the reverse if he is decelerating. On top of that, it's very important to have this movement look nice. The easiest way to do this is have him move in nice smooth arcs, so I'm trying to use a LOT of circular movements out of him. And indeed, it does look better.

Finally number 2, this one frame transition business. When the character changes a movement, does something different, or make any kind of change at all, the very first movement is the absolutely most important. It's the one split second the audience is given to be aware that something new is happening, and even though they will never see this one frame, they will feel it. The clearest example I can give of this is that I have a scene where the runner is attached to a pair of stilts which fall to the ground, causing the stilts to bend kind of like a catapult. The runner reaches towards the ground but in the end is only rocketed backwards into the sky. So in that one shot, there are two main movements: Reaching for the ground and being rocketed back. He's off in the horizon in about 6 frames so I don't have a lot of time to give a great impression of what's happening. So, I'm going to test out one frame in between the two movement where his body is rocketed backwards, but his head and arms remain in their same position, causing a mighty painful stretch. After one or two frames of this, I'll have his head and arms leave as well. It should make things a little more impactfull and hopefully even get a laugh.

I'm not sure if this stuff is advanced animation or still basic, but there are about a million things you have to keep in mind while animating. It's tough. Really tough. Even if you see the perfect animation in your head, translating that to a piece of paper or your computer screen is one of the most difficult things out there.

Well, not that I've reviewed these 3 things in my head, I shall return to animating!