Animation: The Mechanics of Motion by Chris Webster.

Animation: the Mechanics of Motion by Chris Webster — this is one of the good ones. Webster must be a great teacher, because it comes across in this book. He makes a complicated subject understandable and he makes it sound fun to do. Webster’s book will give you an understanding of how the various parts of animation are done and the book is put together in a way that smoothly leads you from simple to complex. There is a CD included.

One way to review a “how to” book is to point out what you can learn from it. Notice that “can”, because the only way to learn animation is to do it. You read the book and do the exercises, and if you understand what you are doing, you may start to become an animator. Or one of the many career jobs the book teaches about. Pay attention to all of them, because to really be an accomplished animator, you must understand all of the underpinnings, not just the drawing. Also, more than one artist started out to be an animator and wound up fascinated by some other faction of the field, and made their career there.

In Print Since 1920
There are a lot of animation books out there. In his preface to the book, Webster says the first available textbook was by Edwin George Lutz, published in 1920 and is still in print to this day. Ever since the persistence of motion was discovered, people have wanted to know how to do animation. Most of the principles applicable then have proven to be basic to CG, stop motion and puppet animation today. Webster gets to the heart of any textbook by saying, “Be aware of what you are doing; don’t just do things — think!”

In a section that is extremely useful and all too rare, the book gives you a list of the things you will need before you begin. He then goes on to explain the persistence of motion, and how the eye makes frames per second work for it. This segues nicely in to a discussion of timing, pacing and phrasing — three things that aren’t usually stressed enough. The book emphasizes timing through out as something necessary to achieve realistic motion. He gets into the physics of timing and the difference that the age of a person makes to the action.

Exercises That Require You to Think
The exercises at the end of each chapter are well thought out and will require the student to think as well. He tells you what the aims and objectives of the exercises are. The first one is to make a flipbook, so you understand the use of sequential images. One of the things Webster does that makes this book user friendly is to give suggestions on how to start for those who are still a little intimidated by the subject.

Pay Attention in Class
The cartoons Webster used are great, not only useful, but entertaining as well. In the discussion of stretch and squash he has people dropping things off an apartment building, complete with reactions from those watching. Lest you think this sounds frivolous, this section also talks about the arc of a parabola, variable bounce height, bounce decay and impact and force. Did you pay attention in science class? From there he goes into keyframes, inbetweens and a discussion of pose-to-pose and straight-ahead animation. All this in preparation for the next exercise. As you might expect the exercises get more complex as they go along.

The walk cycle is explored in relation to what the character is carrying, whether or not the object is heavy and where he is lifting it, what he is wearing and how fast he is going. Webster discusses overlapping action, follow through and drag, such as when hair or clothing moves, or the fat in a face. A section of questions you should ask yourself about these things is revealing. Webster insists that you think, but, at the same time, he makes complicated actions clear.

Arcs and Cycles