Exploring Believable Character Animation Based on Principles of Animation and Acting Principles

Abstract

Character animation is a complex process, where the animator has to decide how a character on screen should move, emote and behave. It takes an animator years to polish his or her skills in order to deliver a believable animated character. Character animators, although given certain boundaries to work within, tend to be very subjective in their acting choices. This makes for a very complex and often complicated workflow to follow. Though approach to animating a character differs from one animator to another, there are two main frameworks utilized by many. The two frames works are - 12 Principles of Animation and Acting Principles. The latter set of principles is more current, developed only in 2001 and thus lacks exposure among many novice animators. This papers reports the process combining the existing two frameworks in order to develop a more concise but simple workflow to assist the novice animator.