Animation Demo Reel 2011

Hi everyone,

This is my new animation reel. This reel includes the work I've done for Merry Madagascar, Scared Shrekless, and Shrek 4 DVD. I cannot share some of my newer shots which haven't yet been released. Hope you like them.

An interview of Raman Hui

Hey everyone,

Check out this cool interview of Raman Hui (click the picture), one of the guys who developed the Shrek characters. He is a super nice guy and we are having a lot of fun working with him. In this interview, Raman is as funny, entertaining and natural as he really is in everyday life. Double thumbs up to my good friend Anand Baid, a.k.a. Andy Maxman for organizing this interview.

Hope you all enjoy!

-A

Merry Madagascar on DVD!

Hey everyone!

Finally, the first (short) film of my career, Merry Madagascar, is officially available on DVD.

I did around 15 shots in total. It was real fun and I can't tell you how much I learned about animation during the production.

Get the DVD and enjoy!!!

-A

Merry Madagascar presentation at IAD

Thanks to damned_cat for this awesome picture of Marty. :)

Hi everyone!

There was a premiere presentation of our first short film, Merry Madagascar at the International Animation Day event in Mumbai... and I'm really glad to know that everyone really loved the film! I wasn't there, but some of my colleagues went there to make a few presentations on how we did the film and the challenges we faced. Check out this link.

The movie will be released in the US somewhere around November 17, I believe. It is a fun Christmas special!!

Oh, there is one more good news! My very good friend (a former Animation Mentor student, now working with me), Prashanth Cavale won the award for the Best Professional film in the "1 to 10 minutes" category for his short film "The Cat and the Juggler" at the International Animation Day. Congratulations Prashanth! YAY!!

Cheers everyone!

-A

I'm back!

Hey everyone!

I'm posting after a very long time here... after about 7 months! Right now I'm doing so many things that it has become hard for me to write anything. First off, I don't get time and secondly, I don't know where to start and where to end, what to write and what to hide. Gosh!!

So, we are done with our first project Merry Madagascar. I'm sure you will be seeing that very soon. It was really a good experience working on this Mad short. We all worked really, really hard to learn the Dreamworks way of working and get anywhere close to that level. There were many sweet and bitter moments, but overall it was totally an awesome experience and we rocked it!!! Everyone worked like hell on this first project and I'm really proud of what we did.
Anyway, after completing my work on this show, I took a few weeks of vacation and headed New Delhi for about a week to meet some of my family members. Really had a good time there. Now that I'm back to Bangalore, I have started working on our new Shrek project. I'm sure it is going to be even better and we are gonna rock it too! Dave Burgess is here in Bangalore and he is working with us on our test shots for the next show and taking some really super cool classes. Dave is awesome!!!! I really can't tell you how much I'm learning and enjoying right now, it's just getting better and better.

I'm also working on a personal animation using Jason Ryan's Boris character. I hope to complete it soon and upload it here.

Later,
-A

Some Cool Tips and Tricks!

Hi there everyone!

I've been a little under active on my blog, but now you will find me here quite often sharing thoughts, tips/tricks, animation, etc. YAY!!!!!!!!!! ;)

Check out some really cool articles from a good friend and a very nice guy, Kevan Shorey (animator, PDI/Dreamworks and mentor at AnimationMentor.com). Some really gold stuff.

What Is Twinning? When Should You Use Twinning in a Shot?

How Do Animators Use Contrast?

There could be many more, check out his webpage/blog. Enjoy!

Thanks a lot Kevan for sharing all this and letting me link them up here.

-A

Terrorizing puppet

Hi guys,

I'm totally blown off. Check out this cool puppet video of a puppet terrorist named Ahmad. This puppeteer is just brilliant. Check out the eyes..... it leads the motion and shows every single thought coming in to the brain of the character, and it looks like he is really using his brain to think. Wow, brilliant stuff for animators, and so much to learn. Thanks YouTube!! Enjoy..... YAY!!!!!!!!

My caricature

Tim Ingersoll, our super energetic and uberly talented animation instructor at DreamWorks Animation (Glendale), did my caricature when I was there. Ah.. I should have uploaded this earlier. He did caricatures for every artist who were trained by him at the studio. Thanks a lot Tim!! :) This will be my profile image of this weblog!

-A

Anticipations

Picture taken from John K blog

Just a quick update................

Hi everyone,

I've been really busy with my work lately, so I hardly get time to update my blog and share stuff with you all. I have been watching Jason Ryan's video tutorials in my free time, and I can't tell you how much I'm learning from them... but I hardly get time to finish any of my personal animations, its a shame. I will have to use my weekends to work on them, and hopefully I will have something to show you guys in about a
month. Jason's Boris character is really fun to work with and I'm really looking forward to getting some time to animate this guy.
I've done quite a lot of test animations with the Madagascar characters, but I don't think DreamWorks would allow me to post my work here right now, but I'm quite affirmative that I will get permission to do so in the near future. :)

Anticipations
Okay lets talk about anticipation in animation.

Anticipations is basically used to to lead the viewer's eyes to prepare them for the action that follows. An action usually occurs is three sections : the preparation for the motion, the actual motion, and then the follow-through of the action which you may consider as the result of the motion that occurred. The first part is of course known as anticipation. Generally a greater amount of anticipation is needed for faster actions.
Try to think of anticipation as a 2 dimensional shape change and not necessarily an opposing directional movement. Before an action a character would gather some momentum and that would be illustrated by a change of some sort... and we could easily communicate that with a shape/silhouette change of that character.

Types of shape change that could illustrate an anticipation:

1. Angle change
2. Directional change
3. Weight shift
   
4. Squash and stretch
   
5. Expression change
   

The right approach when posing out an anticipation:

• As always, think "character" when creating a pose/movement and ask yourself.... "what is the character's thought process and state of mind before and during, and after the action? How can I illustrate my character's personality best? Would this kind of action suite my character?" The way your character anticipates for a move and the way he moves and overshoots or settles in or whatever, should reflect your character immediately and should communicate what you want to communicate without any second thought.
• Determine whether it is best to overplay, underplay or keep the anticipation "realistic" to achieve what you want to achieve and the overall purpose and style of the shot is.

• Determine whether it is important for the communication of my intentions to have a big visible anticipation and how much time should I spend on it? How many frames do I hold the character in that anticipation and how much moving hold there should be to just keep it alive. Sometimes when I'm holding on to a pose I make the character anticipate in a moving hold, so you cannot actually see the anticipation, but you can definitely feel it in your animation. Sometimes breathing could be a very nice anticipation in a dialog/acting shot. When saying out something, I let my character breathe in some air.... the shoulders generally go up and head down, creating a bit of opposite actions which keeps the organic-ness of your character and the dialog feels much natural.

Stuff which could help you make your anticipation as appealing as possible:

• Involve facial animation
• Coordinate multiple elements into anticipation when necessary
• Use appealing angle changes
• Make sure all the elements are harmonizing
• use opposing movements withing the anticipation (for example, hip moves forward, arm moves back or head moves down, and arm moves up.... I learned the importance of this from Jason Ryan and this really helps to make things look organic and not mechanical.

The most important thing to learn about anticipation is to answer the question "what's the right amount of anticipation for this motion?" and "which body parts need to be involved?"

Thats it for now! Hopefully I will be back with some animations with Boris. Take care guys! :)

Cheers!
-amrit

What am I doing? : Before a dialog shot

Hey everyone!

What the heck am I doing these days??!!........... Well, I'm really having a blast doing some test shots with my favorite characters from the movie, Madagascar, just to get used to everything. Yep, thats what I'm doing right now. Well the past few weeks have been pretty busy really... and now you know why I'm not replying to some of your emails. Sorry about that!

This is really one of the most productive part of my life as I am learning a lot from great people.
Before starting on today's topic, I would like to briefly write what I'm doing these days. I've returned back to Bangalore and have joined Dreamworks Animation India. I am surrounded by a big group of talented Indian and French artists. Everyone here is super talented and I'm learning a lot from almost everyone. We are working on tests shots and ramping up for our first show.

In my trip to Glendale, I met a lot of animation ninjas and got an opportunity to learn directly from them and see how they work. As I mentioned in my previous post, I had a class with James Baxter and I also got some really cool tips from him-which is gold for me. Here in India, I'm learning loads from some super talented French animators who already have experience working for DreamWorks new movie, Madagascar 2. It's really great working together with these guys and discussing animation all day long.

Check out this super awesome short film, Oktapodi, which has been created by my very good friend Julien Bocabeille (who works here with me as an animator) and his team at Gobelins. It was named best of show at CG confab Siggraph's Computer Animation Festival. Oktapodi also won the audience prize. It tells the story of two octopi and their comical escape from the grasps of a stubborn and determined restaurant cook. Everyone at DreamWorks Animation is really proud of Julien and this great achievment. Oh yeah... we didn't miss the party! We had great food and we all danced a lot... haha...!! It was great fun!



I have been learning a lot everyday and here's some of the stuff which I have been learning these days. Thanks to my to my instructor Tim Ingersoll for sharing all these cool notes. Just thought to share with you all!

Starting off an acting/dialog shot...

Break down the soundtrack:

When animating an acting/lip sync shot, the most important part of the workflow is listening to the soundtrack very closely. This analysis should happen at three stages.

1) Before starting with animation (this is a good moment to break down the sound. It will give you a lot of insight into the mood, he character and the intention of the performance... imagine how that character would behave while waiting for a bus). Also, mark where the character is breathing or could breathe (very important!).

2) While doing the mouthshepe pass ( listening to the actual track while posing the shapes is crucial. Get the sound file in a loop while working).

3) After finishing animation (this is where you simplify and clarify). Zoom in on the mouth, play it back at a slower speed, scrub. Do you love the shapes? Can you push it? Is it punchy enough, but still fluid? Don't dismiss it as something not really important! It's not okay if it's just kinda of working. A good lip sync will make your scene fly. Its the last touch of perfection. And remember that the audience's eye is most likely going to bounce back and forth between eyes and the mouth.

A super cool tip:

When listening to the track, approach your analysis in the following way:

Don't listen to the words.
Don't listen to the meaning of the dialog.
Listen only to the sound.

The characer might say: "No" instead of "Yes"; or "I hate you" instead of "I love you" is, in the confinement of our job, irrelevant.
What will and should ultimately dictate our work is sound itself.

The sound will tell us the real deeper emotion of the scene. "I hate you" can be the most romantic phrase ever spoken, its the tone and the sound which will reveal the truth hidden just beneath the literal meaning.

Get into your office and act out your scene not by performing the literal meaning of the take, but by reproducing the sounds of the take.

My suggestion:
Don't "speak" as you act, almost sing. SING!!
Don't use real words, mumble.

Just focus on exactly recreating the sound, the pitch, the frequency, the intensity, the loudness.

This will expose the true nature of those sounds and not just the lips and the mouth, but facial expression, head movement, neck and shoulder interaction........ and so on.
You will discover that just like it's impossible to keep your eyes open when you sneeze, it's also impossible not to squint your eyes slightly on the highest notes, or not to flex our eyebrows in falsetto, or keep your chin lifted if you make a very low pitch sound.... and so on.
Each specific sound actually forces certain physicality on our bodies. None of these true and most basic elements of our acting are given to us by "what" the character is saying, but by "HOW" the character is saying it.

-A

The James Baxter class...

Yesterday we met James Baxter! YAY!! When I was shaking hands with him, I said..."Hi! I'm Amrit". Then he said very softly...."Hey, I'm James!" At that moment, I was just looking at his face and thinking..."Okay! Am I dreaming or what? I'm shaking hands with James Baxter!!" It was really an extraordinary feeling which I
simply can't explain in words. I've heard so much about him and now I'm meeting this guy and shaking hands with him.... it was an honor! It was my dream to meet James Baxter one day, but never thought that my dream would ever come true... at least not anytime soon!

He shared some super cool tips and tricks with us and gladly answered all our questions. I wanted to video tape all his lecture ... but I don't wanna break any copyright rules and stuff.... so, just to be on the safer side, I recorded everything in my head.... and this is exactly what Tim Ingersoll (our animation/EMO instructor, a great caricature artists, and a super cool magician!.... this guy is super talented!!) did.

Tim made a cool note on James Baxter's lecture and gave me the permission to post it here on my blog (I've added some of my notes too! Thanks Tim! :) So, here here you go folks.... Enjoy!

James Baxter's Notes (Jul 1, 2008 at DWA, Glendale)


1) Don't have a gesture (pose) for every beat (accent). Choose a few powerful storytelling poses and work within them!

2) Act from the gut, not your head. Who is the character? What does she/he want? think of a character he is like.... animated or real life. For example, Nathan as Chris Farley.

3) The body can be very flexible, loose and stiff. James shows the character pointing in a soft overlap, cartoony way.... or lead with the finger, really aggressively. You don't add overlaps everytime to make it look fully animated.... sometimes you want that character to look angry, aggressive and stiff... so you make him look stiff but be careful with that!! You don't wanna make the pose look stiff! This is the hard part because somewhere you are adding stiffness (in the character) and at the same time you are totally avoiding the ugly, stiff feel. You know, what I mean?

4) On walking, placement of the feet are crucial. Think how he'll get off balance to move and take a step. Which foot is taking the weight?

5) When doing a dialog shot and thinking about the dialog in your head, go with the pace of the dialog! Don't slow down!! For example, if your dialog is: "You know what? I hate you!!" The character is full of anger and disgust... and so, she speaks really fast. When you're going over the dialog and thinking about it in your head, maintain that pace and that feeling and that emotion. Don't slow down...."Aaaaaaaiii.....haaaaaate...... yyyouuuuuuuuuu........" This is somthing which a lot of new animators do when they are thinking about the dialog... they slow down. Not a good idea!

Well, thats it for now! Hope you like it.

Cheers,
-A

Edit: Changed the picture.... some website had problems with it. I don't wanna break any copyright rules.

Edit 2: Check out James Baxter's cool interview on AnimatedViews.com!

The DreamWorks gate...

Click to Enlarge

Standing (Left to Right): Ashok Pallati, Vivek Ram, Aayush Sharma, Kapil Sharma, Adi Shayan, Pramod Deshpande, Mira Arte, Soumitra S. Gokhle, and Amrit R. Derhgawen

Sitting (Left to Right): Sumesh Kumar, Shajo John, Manish Kumar, Anand Baid, Rajesh PK, and Theo

A few pictures!

I'm standing next to my animation guru and friend, Jason Ryan (Glendale, CA). This was my first meeting with Jason and just I can't explain my feelings in words. On Friday night, Jason took me to his favorite Indian restaurant named Akbar, and we had a delicious Indian dinner! He really loves Indian food - which is great! Afterwards, we went to a theater to see Wall-E. The theater was pretty far from the place we had parked the car. And because of this, we had to take a long walk. Jason walked really fast. Although, I'm a six foot tall guy, I was having a hard time catching up with him (okay, maybe because my stomach was full at that time but I still can walk really fast!). He is a highly energized man and walks really fast (taking his height into consideration). He walks with a lot of up and down movement in his walk! When we were watching Wall-E, I kept looking at Jason's face trying to figure out what he was thinking about. And he looked quite pensive... maybe he was thinking about the animation style or acting....I couldn't fathom... all I knew was that he was just thinking really hard! He barely laughed at the jokes and gags.... and after a few hours, when a female robot, EVE (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) kissed Wall-E, Jason finally smiled!! He might have smiled somewhere else, but maybe I didn't notice. On the way back, he dropped me at my apartment. He really is a super sweet guy!

Dave Burgess with me and my friend Soumitra (bottom left corner), Glendale, CA

Jason Schleifer with me (at PDI DreamWorks, Redwood City, CA)

Rex Grignon... a HOCA (Head of Character Animation) giving me some tips and tricks! (PDI DreamWorks, Redwood City, CA)

Rex Grignon suddenly picked me up and I was screaming for life...!! Then suddenly I realized its just for a picture! huh...(PDI DreamWorks)

Prasanjib Nag and Anand Baid (a.k.a. Andy Maxman) with Jason Schleifer, PDI DreamWorks

I'm standing at an entrance of PDI DreamWorks

Standing next to the Panda character (don't remember his name... heh)

So, this is it for now. I'll post more pictures later. I hope you enjoyed it! :)

Cheers!

-A

From Glendale, CA

Hi everyone!

I'm alive..... yes, I'm alive!! Hurray!!!!!..... Right now, I'm in Glendale, CA and getting my training at DreamWorks Animation SKG. This place is crazy man.... it is full of animation vibrations and animation is flying all around the place.... I'm just loving it! Few days back, we all went to San Francisco, CA and visited PDI DreamWork in Redwood City. We spent a whole day there in PDI and it was simply great! I met some great animators like Jason Schleifer and Rex Grignon.... Now I'm back to Glendale. Yesterday, I met Jason Ryan and.... my animation guru!!! And I also met Dave Burgess!! Now I will be learning a lot from these guys. AAH... I'm meeting all the great animators. They are all animation God....do you know how it feels to meet an animation God? Your heart beat will increase 10000 times and you'll start shaking!! I was shaking like hell, but they were super nice and friendly and they did their best to make me really comfortable. :) heheh
I have taken a lot of pictures and I will post them as soon as I get some free time.

Cheers guys!
-A

My Portrait! WOW!

Hi guys! Yeah... this is my portrait!! WOOOOOT!!!! This is made by a crazy artist/animator Rajesh PK, working with me at Dreamworks. I really don't have words. Thanks Rajesh!!

-A

I'm Alive..... From Bangalore, India

Hey guys!
Yeah, this is me..... Amrit! Yes, I'm alive!! :)

I'm in Bangalore and I've joined DreamWorks Animation India, and right now we are all busy preparing to visit Glendale, CA. We will get our initial training from some of the top people of DreamWorks and I'm really excited about that. Life is really crazy here.... I don't have an Internet connection yet, and life is busy like hell. Right now, I'm using one Internet Cafe for writing this post.... and I hardly get time to even check my emails and stuff. Kinda sucks! ..... Anyhoo, I'm enjoying my life and will write more and would definitely post some new pictures as soon as I get some time.

Cheers!

-Amrit

A doodle

Software: Alias Sketchbook Pro

Flip your drawings!

There are many workflows and methods of animation that have been in existence for well over 70+ years now. Many cool traditional tips and tricks are just limited to 2d animation but some of them are really helpful in CG as well. And one of the methods is "flipping". Flipping is a method to go through the drawings very quickly and see whats happening with your character and whether your drawings are working well all together. It gives you a clear picture of your drawings on the whole, and really helps to spot a problem very easily.
When I animate in Maya or FlipBook, I always keep on flipping to my previous drawings while making my poses/drawings. It really helps to figure out the arcs, spacing, overlaps and the overall performance of the action.

TIP for Maya users: Use "<" and ">" to flip through the (CG) drawings. It especially helps when you've timed out your shot and want to flip through your breakdowns and keys to maybe fix some spacing and arcs issues, without worrying about the computer inbetweens.

Here's a video where I've animated a simple floursack jump in FlipBook. You'll see how frequently I flip through the drawings while animating. And it really helps a tonne while inbetweening my shot in 2d, where the spacing might get really, really tight almost like a moving hold, and it becomes almost impossible to put a drawing without flipping back to my previous drawings for reference.

Here is the video, enjoy.... :)


Flour Sack in FlipBook from Amrit Derhgawen on Vimeo.

Boss Walk... doodle

Hey everyone!

I've been reading The Illusion of Life and studying/observing some walking styles. It's a character walk and I like to call it "Boss Walk". This guy is the boss around here! heh... I remember, I've seen this kind of walk in the movie "Flushed Away", where in one of the shots the frog guy (the gangster king) starts walking this way.... and I really loved the style.
This kinda shows over confidence (maybe!), arrogance, leadership, anger, experience, and a very narrow and fixed view. And for this kind of walk you always tend to favor the "up" position, stay there for a while and throw a leg up. The guy really feels at the top of the world and thus, spends more time near the "up" pose. Its really fun to watch and especially to animate! I showed it to Jason. I'm glad he liked it and gave me some great suggestions to improve this walk. As Jason said, its just little stuff but I think I'll do it all over again and I'm trying to find some time for it. I'll post it here as soon as I'm done with my new walk. This time it will look more organic with some opposite actions and better balance. I will also be doing some acting stuff in CG and will post the blocking as well.

Anyway, here is the boss walk...

12 Principles of Animation + 12 More!

Yea.... 12 more!

Thanks to Jeremy Cantor for adding 12 more principles of animation to the original 12 by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. It's more like the icing on the cake and putting a few cherries on top of it. The extra 12 are especially helpful for CG animation, so check 'em out!

I haven't added anything to it, and I'm simply copy-pasting it from this page, so that we don't lose this gold if the site goes down or whatever. And also, thanks to a friend Mustafa Lazkani for pointing this out to me.

Here are the 24 (12 + 12) principles of Animation! ..................

The 12 (er...24) fundamental principles of animation (updated 06/28/03)
(As partially listed in "Disney Animation - The Illusion of Life" by Frank Thomas & Ollie Johnston)

Jeremy Cantor – Animation Supervisor – Sony Pictures Imageworks - May 4th, 2002

1. Squash & Stretch: Organic objects tend to have some degree of malleability. When forces act upon them they will deform appropriately depending on the nature, direction & degree of the forces. When applying squash & stretch in your animations, it is important to remember that, if volume is not maintained, your object will appear to be expanding or contracting. If you squash a tennis ball vertically, it should simultaneously widen horizontally. Squash & Stretch can also be applied to rigid, articulated structures. When the structure compresses, certain joints will rotate off to the side. When you drop from a standing position into a squat, your hips move down while your knees move sideways. Your legs can be said to be squashing and stretching, even though the individual joints are not compressing or expanding.

2. Anticipation: The setup before the main action. It lets the audience know that something is about to happen. For instance: reaching behind you with your fist before delivering a punch. A boxer tries to avoid anticipation (telegraphing) when throwing a jab.

3. Staging & Composition: The clear presentation of an idea. What is the story being told? What is the best way to tell this story? What are the appropriate camera angles & screen direction? Is the flow of the scene guiding the viewer’s eyes as intended? Are your poses strong? If you arbitrarily “freeze-frame”, will the resulting still-image be a well-composed work of art? Do the elements of your scene work together visually? Are your object’s trajectories too linear? Or perhaps too complex? Are important elements of your scene hidden behind less important elements?

4. Straight Ahead Action vs Pose to Pose: Two methods of animating. Straight ahead involves stepping through the individual frames of your scene & manipulating them sequentially. Pose to pose involves defining the extremes and then filling in the spaces inbetween. Stop motion can only be done via Straight Ahead. Cel animation can be done either way. Straight ahead usually requires more pre-planning.

5. Follow Through & Overlapping Action: Follow through is the extension of a main action. For instance, the continuation of a tennis-stroke after the ball contact. Follow-through is also evident when a secondary appendage (tail, antenna) is indirectly driven by the primary motion of the body. Follow-through will occur later than the main action because the force dictating the main action takes longer to reach the appendages. When an object in motion changes direction, stops accelerating or stops completely, secondary parts of that object will continue in the original direction after the change in the main force. A woman's dress fluffing forward after she stops walking. A ponytail bouncing in an "S" motion when someone jumps up and down. Follow-through is often reduced if an appendage has (and uses) its own muscles. When a cat runs, the muscles of its tail often tighten to reduce follow-through & maintain balance. Overlap is the concept that not all moving parts of your body will start and end at exactly the same time. If you turn your head and point, your arm movement might begin before your head finishes turning. Overlap is nonexistent if the head and arm start & stop on the same frame or if the arm waits to move until the head has completed its motion. Such non-overlapped motions tend to look robotic.

6. Slow In/Slow Out: Organic motion tends to accelerate and decelerate into and out of action. (Except when met with a force that causes an abrupt stop or direction change.) This type of motion often does not apply to mechanical objects.

7. Arcs: The parts of an articulated skeleton move as a result of joint rotations. When a wrist travels from point A to point B, it does so as a result of elbow and shoulder (etc) rotation. Therefore, the motion will tend to arc. It is possible to move one's wrist in a straight line, however, continuous compensatory adjustments in the rest of the arm are required to achieve this motion and such movements tend to look less organic (or at least more deliberate - like a straight punch). If you want a character to move like a robot, ignore the concepts of arcs, overlap and slow in/slow out.

8. Secondary Action: Any motion that is 2ndary to the main action. For instance: drumming your fingers on your knee while talking. 2ndary actions often reveal emotional subtleties or hidden thoughts. If the 2ndary action pulls the viewer's attention away from the main action, however, it becomes the main action.

9. Timing: Varying speed of motion can indicate different types & strengths of forces. Timing can demonstrate different attitudes. Turning one's head very quickly implies a different motivation from doing so slowly. Fast walks can imply determination. Slow walks can imply depression. Metronomic timing is usually undesirable.

10. Exaggeration: Exaggeration is used to increase the readability of emotions and actions. Animation mediums don't deliver all of the same information as does real life. A video screen is not truly 3-D. Sound comes from a single source. Depth perception is not interactive. Because of the limited information being delivered, it's often necessary to exaggerate in order to effectively tell the story of a particular performance. Effective exaggeration isn’t always a matter of making a motion larger, though. Significantly decreasing an action is also a type of exaggeration. Accentuating the subtleties, that is. Completely stopping a character's motion for an unnaturally long period of time can demonstrate a particular emotion: Perhaps impatience or disgust. Exaggeration is, of course, especially apparent in cartoon-style animation.

11. Solid Drawing: In cel animation, each individual drawing should be a successful work of art on its own. This adds to the appeal & readability of a performance. It is also important to stay "on model". Each drawing should look like the character being presented. It is distracting when the size of a character's head is inconsistent during the course of an animation.

12. Appeal: Is the presentation of your idea pleasant to look at? (Or unpleasant if that is the intention). Are general aesthetics being effectively applied (composition, character design, color, camera angles, etc)?

And 12 more...

13. Simplicity & Readability: Don't unnecessarily over complicate your scene, character or performance. Do just enough to tell the story. Too much secondary and too many details can sometimes confuse the issue and make the idea being presented unclear.

14. Posing: A subset of "staging". Interesting poses are extremely important for effective & natural-looking animation. Pay attention to center of gravity issues (does your character look like he's going to fall down?). It’s usually a good idea to avoid too much symmetry in your poses. One hip is often a little higher than the other. Weight is rarely distributed evenly over both feet. How does the silhouette read?

15. Forces: An object moves when forces are applied to it. Consider where these forces are coming from. Are they being generated from within (desire, intention, muscle movement) or from without (gravity, the wind, a push from another character)? The origin, magnitude, direction & duration of these forces will dictate how your characters move. How is your character affected by these forces? Does your character resist them or does he “go with the flow”? Do multiple forces cancel out one another? Understand a force’s “attack & decay”. How powerful is the initial “hit” of the force? How long does an object continue reacting to the force? Consider the material of the object. Rubber “decays” slower than cloth.

16. Weight: Demonstrating the implied mass of a character. This is a function of the proper application of squash & stretch, anticipation, follow through, overlap, timing, exaggeration, and slow in/slow out. Whether or not a character looks especially heavy or especially light when getting up from a chair is dependent upon how these principles are applied. A heavier object requires more force to set it in motion. This is often demonstrated by increasing anticipation. Likewise, it requires more force to slow, stop or reverse the direction of a heavier object. Placement of your character’s center of gravity is an important aspect of weight. Physics rules indicate that a static object’s center of gravity must be directly above or below the average of its point(s) of suspension. For instance, when you stand on one foot, your COG needs to be directly above your support foot. Otherwise, you will begin to fall. Of course, this all changes if you are in motion. Pay attention to pivot/leverage points as well. Watch out for isolated body part movements. Even the simplest arm move often involves contributing motion from the shoulder & torso. Keeping your individual body parts appropriately working together is another way of indicating weight.

17. Twinning & Texture: To maintain natural-looking performances, it is usually desirable to break up the motion of individual body parts so they are not doing the exact same thing at the exact same time. ie: when slapping your character’s hands on a table, you might want the left hand to hit a frame or two before the right. A variation of the twinning concept is when members of a swarm or flock are exactly mimicking one other. Pay attention to the overall “texture” when animating groups of objects or characters. Consider a flock of birds or a field of grass reacting to the wind. What is the overall feel of the group? Is there enough variety in the trajectories of the individual elements? Is every bird flapping its wings at the exact same frequency? Is the wind affecting every blade of grass in exactly the same manner at exactly the same time? Are the individual elements supposed to be working together? If so, are you using an appropriate amount of variation between these individuals? Are your synchronized swimmers exactly synchronized? If so, is this intentional? Even when individual members of a group try to copy one another exactly, minor variations often occur.

18. Details: Sometimes the difference between a good animation and a great animation comes from effective attention to detail. You never know where a viewer's eyes may be wandering. Just because the main focus of a shot is on your character's face, don't forget to animate the toes. Details like thigh muscles jiggling when a foot hits the ground add to the naturalism of a performance & can help tell the story. Introducing naturalistic imperfections will also add to the believability of your shot. Keep in mind, however, that it is usually not desirable to confuse the action with too many details. (see principle #13) Watch out for technical glitches such as geometry intersections and IK “pops”. Material integrity is also an important detail to consider. Is it appropriate to squash & stretch a rigid object such as a stone? Some animators will do this as an aesthetic choice. Others prefer to follow realistic rules of physics. And don’t try to hide animation errors behind overly detailed modeling, lighting, texture maps & particle effects. This is an undesirable variation of the “attention to detail” concept. Consistent style, physics and quality are also important details to maintain.

19. Planning Ahead: It's always a good idea to plan out a performance before starting. Act out the motion with a stopwatch and take down some numbers. This is very important in stop motion where it's impossible to go back and fix an individual part of a performance after it has been filmed. It's especially important to plan ahead when you have a deadline. Most of us rarely have the opportunity to animate by trial and error. As the carpenters say: Measure twice, cut once.

20. Hookups & Continuity: To maintain flow and readability, each scene needs to “cut” properly with the next. Are the spacial relationships between your characters consistent from one scene to the next? Does an object’s trajectory look like it continues sensibly after a camera cut? Does the new camera position confuse the clarity of the action? If you cut away from a particular action then return later, do the changes in the scene make sense with the length of the time lapse? Do your actions overlap? Should they? Sometimes it is desirable to intentionally break the rules of continuity, but care should be taken when doing so.

21. Acting: Animation is acting. Always keep this in mind. What is your character's motivation & emotional state? Such information should be revealed in your performances. A shot’s story can't be told if the characters are simply moving through the scene without any indication of intention or personality. Always ask “why?” Every movement should have a purpose. Arbitrary motions rarely contribute anything to a character’s performance. Contrasts are an important element in acting as well. Animating the same character with significant contrasts in timing can imply completely different personalities & motivations.

22. Blocking/Refining: A third method of animating as opposed to Straight Ahead or Pose to Pose. This method (very often utilized in CG) involves initially establishing the overall posing, timing and trajectories of your character as a "blocking" phase. Details are added after these global issues are refined and approved. Similar to the (sometimes) preferred method of painting where the overall composition and colors are established rather abstractly and the image slowly comes together as a whole as the details are refined with smaller and smaller brushes. As opposed to finishing one corner of the painting before moving on to another. This blocking/refining method is especially desirable in CG so that global timing can be refined before there are a huge number of keyframes to tweak.

23. Understanding The Principles: It's not enough to simply be able to recite these principles from memory. To animate effectively, you must truly understand them. These principles need to be applied appropriately, and sometimes certain ones need to be left out entirely. For example, a cat does not always need to crouch down in anticipation before jumping up (except on big jumps or specifically predatory/playful actions) because its natural posture is already an anticipatory crouch. And while it is certainly okay to squash & stretch a bowling ball, bending the laws of physics thusly should be the result of an aesthetic choice rather than blind implementation of the squash & stretch principle. If you are asked to make your character look heavier, you can only accomplish this if you truly understand which principles need to be applied and how. Rules are made to be broken, but one must truly understand a rule before it can be broken creatively and appealingly.
24. Forget the Rules: After you've studied and understood the fundamental principles of animation, strive to use them instinctively rather than methodically. Try not to get too caught up in the idea of applying them academically at every turn. Often, it's better to turn off the analytical side of your brain and follow your gut instead. Your best weapon as an animator is your ability to self-critique objectively and effectively, especially in CG, where trial and error is such a viable technique. When you review your own work, don't ask yourself which of the fundamental principles are being applied properly, rather simply ask yourself whether or not your animation feels right. The ability to use the vocabulary of these principles is indeed important when you are teaching or supervising, however, never forget that your instincts as well as your innate and objective sense of style and appeal are much more powerful production tools than any available list of rules or principles.