How To Animate

Key Concepts for Simple Digital Animation

This tutorial offers fundamental tips for beginners focusing on short animations and simple character movements. Animation requires a shift in mindset from traditional illustration.

The Animation Mindset

Movement Over Perfection [00:01:09]: Let go of making every single frame look perfect, or focusing on fancy anatomy and shading. The goal is simple shapes and smooth movement, not a masterpiece illustration [00:01:22].
Focus on Simple Shapes: Keep your characters and objects simple, as redrawing complex details for every frame is time-consuming.

Essential Tools & Workflow

Key Program Features [00:01:44]: Regardless of the software (even simple editors like CapCut or IbisPaint can work):
- Animation Cells/Layers: Each image or "frame" must be on a new layer or cell [00:01:48].
- Onion Skins: Allows you to see the previous frame layered over the new one to draw the continuation of the movement [00:01:51].
- Timeline: Where your frames sit to be arranged and timed [00:02:03].
- Liquify Tool: This tool is vital for quickly creating effects like squashing and stretching without redrawing entire frames, saving significant time [00:02:17].
Planning with Extremes [00:02:50]: To plan the movement, first draw the perfect **start frame** and the perfect **end frame**. Then, you add the **in-between frames** to smooth everything out [00:02:56].

Timing and Pacing (Frame Counting)

Frame counting is critical for smooth movement and involves determining how many frames each drawing is held for.

Animating on Twos [00:04:29]: This is the most popular method, where every drawing is held for two frames. This creates a smooth, uniform movement.
Animating on Ones [00:04:22]: A new drawing for every frame; the smoothest result but very time-consuming.
Easing [00:04:50]: Mix ones, twos, threes, and fours within the timeline to create variations in speed, allowing movement to "ease in" and "ease out" (fast-slow-fast or vice versa).
Tip for Learning [00:05:25]: Go frame-by-frame on animations you like (using the comma and period keys on YouTube) to count the frames used by the original animator.

Principles of Movement

Circular Movement [00:06:28]: All movement should follow a curved path, not a straight line, to look more natural and lively.
Squash and Stretch [00:07:01]: Over-exaggerate movement: squish an object when it falls, and stretch it when it takes off or lands [00:07:08]. The Liquify tool is perfect for this.
Anticipation [00:08:02]: Just before a movement, pull the character back slightly in the opposite direction for one frame (count it as a 'one' or 'two') to create a sense of loading up before release.
Rest/Hold Frames [00:07:36]: Add one or two frames where the character holds the final pose after a movement to let the audience's eye rest.
Small Bounces/Reactions [00:08:34]: For small movements or expression changes, slightly shift the object up in the frames just before the final position to create a little bounce effect.