Gameplay Animation & You! Part 1 of 3: Animator

Welcome back internet!

Thanks! What are we talking about today Pat?

I'm glad you asked because today we're talking about tax law!! You see, tax law is an area of legal study dealing with consti...

STOP! I don't want to know about that! Why would I come here for tax law?! I want to know about gameplay animation.

Oh right. Sorry internet. As I said last time, I believe a gameplay animator is made up of three elements. The first of which is in the name. 

Animator!

Like the title suggests, we're primarily animators and therefore obsess about things animators obsess about. 

Credit card points!

No. Terrible, terrible, terrible guess. We obsess about the 12 principles of animation (Classics!) These concepts defined by the great Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston represent the building blocks of animation. You can see my attempts at simplifying them for you below. 

Squash and stretch

Anticipation

Staging



Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose



Follow Through and Overlapping Action

Slow In and Slow Out

Arcs



Secondary Action

Timing

Exaggeration

Solid Drawing

Appeal

Although I don't animate boxes all day, these principles still apply to everything I animate. They are the building blocks of what I do.

Fascinating stuff. What else do animators think about?

We also obsess about fart jokes. You know, for science.

Ha! Farts...always good.

Yep! That's pretty much it for this post. If you have any questions about this stuff feel free to ask in the comments section. Otherwise, I'd rather not hear from you until the next post. I need my space.

FIN