Squash and Stretch

The twelve principles of animation are essential techniques for animating in both 2D and 3D. The first principle, squash and stretch, involves the exaggeration of a character's body to create the illusion of weight and volume as it moves. Squash generally shows force, impact or anticipation, whilst stretch indicates acceleration or velocity.

To demonstrate, I was set the task of animating a bouncing ball. This required each frame to be individually drawn using a light box and animation pegs to assure that the animation flowed.

Throughout this process it was important to consider not only the volume of my ball, but that each drawing followed an arced motion path. It was somewhat difficult to judge the distance between each drawing as the velocity increased and decreased, however I upon watching the final video I feel that this is not too much of an issue.

I also attempted this exercise in Autodesk Maya using a polygon sphere with a rig that allowed the ball to move, squash and stretch.

I found this method to be much easier and quicker as the rig controlled the volume of the ball when squashing and stretching. The software also created the in-between frames, meaning that I avoided the earlier issue of judging distance. 

I also used Maya to complete a similar exercise where the ball needed to accelerate before coming to a sudden halt. This time the character has a tail, which follows through as the ball stops. This task was the easiest of the three, which is most probably due to the linear motion path. 

To further experiment with the principle of squash and stretch, I will later animate the same character to maneuver between various obstacles.