ANIMATION DICTIONARY
his small and simple dictionary page covers various Animation related terms. It was written/compiled by me and is addressed to anyone learning, new to, or curious about this field. It mostly explains terms directly related to character animation, but also lightly touches on more general Graphics topics, such as VFX and CGI production. Feel free to copy/replicate this page anywhere you want, but pls add a link to my page as well if you do, or credit, and maybe drop me an email to say hi!
2D
Anything created on a 2D plane/sheet/canvas (see 3D).
3D
Anything built inside a 3D software, as a virtual 3-dimensional object (even though it gets rendered as a 2D image that we see on a 2D screen, the difference is in the method of creation: 2D content is created on a 2D canvas, 3D content is created using 3D objects in a virtual 3D space)(see 2D).
Animatic
In its simplest form, a storyboard filmed and timed so you get a flowing version of it and be able to judge the storyboard as film. In a more complex form, a rough version of the film that involves camera movement and characters and props moving (but with very basic animation, just to roughly place elements in space and time). It has also been called a 'Leica reel', in the past. As the production of the film begins the animatic is usually continuously upgraded (with layout for example, and then animation, as soon as there is any) (see Layout; Props; Production; Storyboard).
Anticipation
An action has three stages: anticipation, action, and reaction. We anticipate actions before we do them, unless we suddenly get hit by the action.. Also, anticipation in animation is used to attract attention. An anticipation can be followed by nothing, or a different action from what we expect, in which case it has a comedic effect. Using huge anticipation for a run for example, and then only showing some reaction like the dust off of the character that just zipped out of screen, makes the action clear, even though we actually didn’t see the action at all (see Reaction).
Appeal
Or attractiveness.. Ability of an object or character to attract attention due to pleasing visual features: art, design, acting, personality, overall quality of the animation..
Arcs
Or curves. An object/articulation’s path of action is normally an arc, unless we animate mechanical devices. Arcs can be more or less round, and can turn more or less abruptly.. Animating objects/articulations along arcs (as opposed to straight lines) creates natural and organic animation flow (see Articulation).
Articulation
A character’s joint, or joining/connection between two bones. Character animation is, technically speaking, mostly animation of joints/articulations. Articulations can have 1, 2 or 3 degrees of rotation freedom (such as rotate left /right, up/down, and twist), and be more or less flexible. For example an elbow is an articulation with just 1 degree of freedom, while a shoulder has 3.
Breakdown
When working pose to pose, the highest level of poses are the key poses, the keys are further detailed with extremes, and then further detailed with breakdown poses (and at the lowest level is the inbetween). Breakdowns basically describe small bits of movement, and because they’re found in between two extreme positions, they’re also called passing or middle positions). An arc for instance can have two extremes and then, to further define it, you add one or more breakdowns (so, for example, if the extremes were left and right, the breakdown could be a middle-up “extreme”). An animator can use one or several layers of breakdowns (see Arcs; Extreme; Inbetween; Key; Pose to pose animation).
Breaking joints
Bending a joint in the opposite direction to its normal bending, in such a position that would normally, in reality, break it. This is used for flexibility, for creating the illusion of a curvy limb, waving like a flexible piece of rubber (see Articulation; Progressively breaking joints).
Camera cut
An interruption of the film/image by moving to another image/piece of film. A cut separates two shots (see Shot).
CG
Computer Graphics. Everything that is drawn or built with computer software, and has a visual, graphical outcome (also called CGI: Computer-Generated Imagery).
Claymation
(See Stopmotion).
Color script
A tool for organizing the overall color design for every scene in a movie. The color script is just a series of images, usually paintings, each of them representing the color mood of a certain scene.
Compositing
The process of adding layers of images to create a final image. It normally applies to working with image sequences that are rendered from 3D in separate layers. Also, compositing can be used to put together layers of real film output and photography, in order to create a final image sequence. Or mix the both media.
Color grading
Same as color correction. The process of altering an image's color balance. For example, turning a regular color picture into sepia, or desaturating it.
Contact
Or Contact position. Used when a character “takes off” or “lands”, basically when it just comes in contact with something, or just about to leave (so it’s not necessarily foot contact, but can be hand, head, anything). Used many times as a stretched pose, in cartoon animation, the contact helps the flow of images by connecting the object about to reach (or just departing from) a target… with the target. This contact kills strobing by filling empty space. Even though the contact position is many times a weird overstretched exaggerated pose, it flows so quick it can’t be seen, just felt, and it gives an organic continuity to the motion - it also helps describing a path of action. In a walk, the contact is the position where the foot touches the ground but has no weight on it yet (see Path of action; Strobing; Weight).
Counteraction
As a character moves, the loose parts (like hair, breasts, fat, clothes) stay behind and tend to move in the opposite direction (not to mistake for follow through, which is the action of those body parts AFTER the movement has come to a stop; also, not to mistake for secondary action or overlapping)(see Follow through; Overlap; Secondary action).
Down position
Also called a Low position. In a walk or a run, it's the lowest pose, with weight on it (see Up position).
Extreme
The start and ending point of an action, of an arc for instance. In a walk, the extremes are the down/low and the up/high positions, in an arm swing the extremes are the most forward and the most backward positions (see Arcs; Down position; Up position).
Figure 8
A particular type of arc that describes a figure 8 pattern, it can be used for turns, cycles, arm swings for ex.. A figure 8 can be very thin and barely look like an eight, and it can be incomplete, I think the turn and the intersection are more important. Using a figure 8 or an oval, not a sharp turn, will create a progressive slow down of the movement and a natural turn (use sharp turns if a hard accent/bounce is needed, of course, although a sharp oval or figure 8 can also be used as a softer bounce) (see Arcs; Hard accent).
Follow through
Auxiliary elements of the body, like tails, floppy ears, clothing, etc, that are soft and flexible, do not come to a stop at the same time with the rest of the body, but follow through… and settle after a while (not to be mistaken for secondary action, which is conscious movement, nor for counteraction, which is about the dragging, while follow through is about the settling)(see Counteraction; Overlap; Secondary action).
FPS
Frames per second (see Frame rate).
Frame
An image in a succession of images (that when played back give the illusion of movement).
Frame handles
Extra frames added at the beginning and/or end of a shot, also called Cutting frames (see Shot).
Frame rate
The number of frames per second. Animation, like film, works at 24 FPS (see FPS; Frame).
Hard accent
Simply put: a bounce. You “hit” and change direction (see Soft accent).
Hold
A character striking a pose that’s a simple drawing with no animation on it. If there is very subtle animation, it’s not a hold anymore, it’s a moving hold (see Moving hold).
Inbetween
The smallest unit of an animation. Keys are further detailed with extremes, extremes are being broken down with…. breakdowns, and breakdowns are being broken down with inbetweens. The inbetweens in hand drawn animation are indicated by the animator, and drawn by the inbetweener. On a computer, the animator can use computer inbetweening - and use all kinds of interpolations in between keyframes (see Extreme; Interpolation; Key; Keyframe).
Interpolation
The way a computer calculates the path between 2 points. There can be many types of interpolations, such as linear, spline, stepped, etc, and sometimes they can be named differently in different software. Linear, as the name says it, calculates a simple, straight line between the points. The spline is a curve, and there are many types of curves that can be calculated between points, usually using manually editable tangents. Stepped is a direct jump from one point to another, without calculating any interpolation (it holds the value of point one until it's time to go to point two, and then jumps).
Joint
(See Articulation).
Key
Or key pose. One of the few and most important poses in a shot, which is where its name comes from: you have a drawing on a frame that’s ‘key’ to the entire length of the shot or part of that shot. An entire shot can easily revolve around one or two keys. A key pose usually captures an expression, so I like to call it an expression pose (also called main or “golden” pose) (see Keyframe; Pose).
Keyframe
A keyframe is different from a key pose. A keyframe is any pose (or any posing of an articulation) saved by the animator, and therefore not automatically inbetweened by the software. In 2D animation, a keyframe is any drawing that is not an inbetween. It usually contains information about how to inbetween to the next drawing (see Inbetween; Key; Pose; Posing).
Layout
Pre-animation stage where you arrange the characters, cameras, props, all the objects in your scene that need to be ready for animation.
Line of action
An imaginary line that you can draw along a character’s pose. A character’s body posture flows along this imaginary line of action. Flexible and dynamic line shapes tend to be arched (C-like) or S-like, with the legs and hands either flowing along the line or opposing it. Natural/realistic body poses are also many times based on C and S shapes, but are more diverse though, and also may be less dynamic, with less visual impact (see Path of action).
Lipsync
Animating the mouth to synchronize it with speech.
Moving hold
In computer animation especially, holds are usually moving holds, meaning that if you freeze the character into a pose it will look like a statue. A moving hold is subtle animation on a character that's not supposed to move much, just hold a pose, while also looking alive (see Hold).
Ones
Animation “on ones” means a drawing (or image render) per each frame. In hand drawn animation this is usually used in fast and/or detailed, intricate motion. Computer animation renders everything frame by frame, so normally there is no “ones versus twos” battle (see Twos).
Overlap
Delaying different body parts or any animated elements so you don’t have everything hitting an accent or coming to a stop on the same frame (see Counteraction; Follow through; Secondary action).
Overshooting
Going over the limits of an extreme, or of any pose, and then coming back to that pose - to give it an extra punch.
Path of action
Or trajectory. Any animated object/body/articulation travels along a path of action, which is usually an arc, more or less curved. Mechanical objects can have something very close to truly linear movement. But natural movement of organic (living or non-living) things follows arcs/curved paths of action (see Arcs; Articulation; Line of action).
Pose
An object's position/positioning. The object can be anything: a lamp, a character, a character's face, a group of cubes.. (see Posing; Pose to pose).
Posing
Creating a pose by positioning a body/face/object/whatnot.. to describe/express something. In 2D this is done by drawing the pose. In 3D, usually by rotating and translating articulations (sometimes scaling or changing custom attributes on a rig) (see Pose).
Pose to pose
A method of animating: the animator sets layers of poses and works in an organized fashion by breaking down the movement in more and more detail. The highest layer is that of the key poses, then come the extremes, then breakdowns (as many layers as needed - some people prefer to add layers and keep breaking things down in more and more detail), and finally, the lowest, more mechanical level, of the inbetweens (this method tends to be too rigid, it’s ideal to combine it with straight ahead animation and work straight ahead between the main poses, that I like to call “pillars”) (see Pose; Straight ahead).
Postproduction
Everything there is to do after the actual production. There is color grading, editing, sound design… last minute panic, all that jazz. Also, in VFX, postproduction means all that is done after the actual shooting, so everything related to CG VFX would be postproduction (see CG; Color grading; Preproduction; Production; Shooting; VFX).
Preproduction
Preparations for the film - that include research, using inspirational artwork, designing characters, sets, props, creating a color script, developing the story, creating a storyboard and upgrading it to an animatic, etc. In the case of real film, preproduction also includes creating props and sets, since production only involves actual shooting (see Animatic; Color script; Postproduction; Production; Prop; Set; Shooting; Storyboard).
Production
The actual work on the film once the preproduction stage is done. In a 3D pipeline, for example, it means modeling, texturing, shading, rigging, dynamic simulations, lighting and rendering. In film, production is considered only the actual shooting process (see Postproduction; Preproduction; Shooting).
Progressively breaking joints
We apply the breaking joints technique to an entire chain. Joints in a flexible chain follow a leader who’s generating the motion, and the motion propagates through this chain in such a way that 2 follows 1, 3 follows 2 and so on. It’s the overlap principle applied to a chain of breaking joints (see Breaking joints).
Prop
Object used by a character.
Reaction
An action has three stages: anticipation, action, and reaction. An action can be followed by a reaction to that action, and this reaction can be that of the character, of the ambient, of an object… (like if you fly and hit a wall, the hit is a reaction). Reaction can be used with great effect in film when you have multiple layers of reaction (you hit a wall, the wall fractures, you fall down, the wall fractures some more, the wall collapses on top of you, the entire construction that was held by that wall collapses, the entire city is left in darkness because the construction was an electrical power plant or something… and so on, an entire chain of events) (see Anticipation).
Rotoscoping
Copying movement by tracing video frame by frame (helpful sometimes..). Also, used in compositing to create masks (see Compositing).
Scene
Normally referred to as a sequence of shots where all the action happens within a given space and time, with no jumps to a different space and/or time.
Secondary action
Small auxiliary movements meant to enrich the main action. Fingers playing, shoulders going back and forward, tails swinging, ears turning, blinks, etc (if simply dragged, or pushed, or settling, we are dealing with physics, not conscious movement; that is not secondary animation, it's counteraction or follow through) (see Counteraction; Follow through).
Set
The happy place where the action happens. In 2D there might be no set if all there is is painted backgrounds, but in 3D or stopmotion you need to build the set from the ground up (unless, again, you use background images).
Shot
The smallest fragment of a film, the amount of film rolling in between two camera cuts (see Camera cut).
Shooting
The process of recording images on film using a real camera. Usually nobody gets hurt.
Slow in
Also referred to as “ease in”. A movement that starts slower and then accelerates is a movement with a slow in (see Slow out).
Slow out
Also referred to as “ease out”. A movement that slows down towards its end is a movement with a slow out (see Slow in).
Soft accent
An accent created by a moving object or body or articulation without changing the direction of action but simply alternating timing and spacing - introducing fast movement in slow action and vice versa. The contrast doesn’t need to be significant to be noticeable. Basically, you “hit” and continue in the same direction (see Hard accent; Timing and spacing).
Squash and stretch
It can mean either:
1. squashing and stretching a body - to enhance a movement and make the character more flexible (rigid parts of the body, like the cranium, should normally be kept rigid);
or 2. squashing and stretching a pose - this doesn’t involve any deformations, but being aware of them while posing enhances movement. Life is a continuous squash and stretch.
Stopmotion
Animation with real-world puppets, where the camera takes a picture and then the animators rearrange the puppet, the camera takes another picture, and so on. Basically, we have a camera that is “stopped at every frame” (also called stopframe animation, stopmo, claymation - when the puppets are clay sculptures).
Storyboard
A tool for planning film. A sequence of images, usually rough drawings on small pieces of paper, pinned to a board, visually describing a story. Each image describes an event. So a shot could be described with just one, or several images. The storyboard is often used during the development of the story, in the preproduction of a film. It’s easy to change story structure by rearranging the drawings pinned on the board, making new drawings, etc. (see Animatic; Shot).
Straight ahead
A method of animating: the animator works frame by frame in a continuous creative flow. This method tends to be too loose, unfocused, and hard to control in an animation production. It’s ideally combined with pose to pose animation: the animator works straight ahead between the main poses)(see Pose; Pose to pose animation).
Strobing
Discontinuous movement that looks flickery or jittery, created by a sequence of images that don't look connected from one frame to another. If the distance is too great, and there is no motion blur or cartoon stretch to overlap the position of the object in successive frames, the eye perceives a break in the flow of images. Panned backgrounds can produce strobing at certain speeds, but it depends on softness, color, contrast, perceived depth, and where the eye is directed to look at. For images to flow well one into another they have to be connected in such a way that the eye doesn’t read any obstruction, or break, or unexpected change.
Timing and spacing
Abstract concepts created by animators to be used as animation tools.
Timing is easier to explain, it represents how much time passes between two keys.
Spacing means what happens between the two keys: if the movement is even, if it accelerates, or if it slows down. Basically, if there is more space between poses, visually, the object will move faster. And the other way around. So spacing relates to time more than space, and is actually a timing tool, because the difference in spacial positioning creates a difference in speed.
Twos
Animation “on twos” means a drawing (or image render) for every two frames. The drawings get duplicated, which means half the number of drawings. In hand drawn animation this is usually used in normal and slow motion. Stopmotion also uses twos (see Ones).
Up position
Also called a High position. In a walk or a run (etc) it is the highest pose, with the weight traveling upwards, maybe being thrown up in the air by the body movement (see Down position).
VFX
Visual effects. Everything that needs to be added to real film shooting in order to create final imagery. This can include 2D, 3D graphics, compositing, color grading, etc (see 2D; 3D; color grading; compositing)
Weight
Any body or object has a certain weight, that we can read/perceive/understand from its movement and its interaction with other bodies or objects. A heavy object for example is hard to move, a heavy body in movement will put more effort into fighting gravity. A heavy object or body is hard to start and hard to stop. Each step set by a heavy character is going to leave the ground for a very little amount of time and come back to the ground really fast, so the illusion of weight is mainly created with timing. A heavy box is hard to lift, so the character has to position itself in such a way as to accommodate that difficult task, and also think about the action before doing it. In this case we help achieving the illusion of weight through attitude and posing.
Weight shift
The weight of a body in motion shifts from one part of the body to another as the body changes the center of balance. For instance in a walk we keep shifting the weight from one foot to another. Being aware of where the weight is and how it shifts is essential to creating believable movement. If the character, for example, is out of balance because its weight has shifted on its left, and the left foot is in the air, and the animator holds that pose without the character collapsing, it’s wrong. When cartoons purposefully defy the laws of physics for the sake of humor, we can accept that because we understand that context. But in most cases, for creating believable movement, you need to abide to the laws of physics. Also, for believability in unrealistic situations, even if a cartoon character might literally walk on air because they didn’t read about gravity yet, that walk still needs proper weight.