Guide:Animation

The Twelve Principles of Animation

Twelve basic principles of animation is a book written by early Walt Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. It outlines twelve general principles which are regarded as fundamental among animators.

To save you a lengthy, complicated explanation of each of these, here's a useful educational video by Alan Becker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDqjIdI4bF4

1. Squash and Stretch
2. Anticipation
3. Staging
4. Straight-Ahead and Pose-to-Pose
5. Follow-Through and overlapping action
6. Slow-In and Slow-Out
7. Arcs
8. Secondary Action
9. Timing
10. Exaggeration
11. Solid Drawing
12. Appeal

Animating for Weissblatt

Doom Sprite animation system

Weissblatt's sprite animation system works by appending a frame and an angle to the name of your sprites lump name. For example, the animation WALK may consist of the frames WALKA0, WALKB0, WALKC0 and WALKD0.

sss

A4 (Back-Left diagonal)	AC	A5 (Back)	AD	A6 (Back-Right diagonal)
AB	A0 (Billboarding)			AE
A3/AL (Left)				A7/AR (Right)
AA				AF
A2 (Front-Left diagonal)	A9	A1 (Front)	AG	A8 (Front-Right diagonal)

Tips and Tricks

1. Be sure to animate a good sketch first - it's easier to clean up when stuff goes wrong.
2. Stage animations to be readable and express character. Viewers won't notice a little cheat to do so.
3. Players are more likely to look at individual animations than full turnarounds. Focus on making good-looking animations first and then adjust them to look good from all sides.
4. Most of the time there's no space for inbetweens. Focus on good key poses and breakdowns.
5. Sometimes, the engine may play animations at different speeds. Consider the amount of frames in an animation as more important than the actual time.