There is a very interesting youtube series about the 12 Principles of Animation as described by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston in their book "The Illusion of Life".
and here they are:
[embed=720,405]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haa7n3UGyDc[/embed]
[embed=720,405]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8OtE60T8yU[/embed]
[embed=720,405]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-SXLaQGg50[/embed]
[embed=720,405]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8quCbt4C-c[/embed]
[embed=720,405]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OxphYV8W3E[/embed]
[embed=720,405]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQBFsTqbKhY[/embed]
[embed=720,405]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1_tZ9LhJD4[/embed]
[embed=720,405]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjBHWw1TbP4[/embed]
[embed=720,405]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BarOk2p38LQ[/embed]
[embed=720,405]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfFj-VQKiAM[/embed]
[embed=720,405]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7An0jukOkCI[/embed]
[embed=720,405]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SplEuWp0Yw[/embed]
Oh, I have to watch these! I'm self-taught and I'm well aware of the mistakes I make and short-cuts I take -- mostly because I do everything else myself at the same time: writing, scripting, sound editing AND drawing a webcomic, sooooo sometimes there's simply no time to be an arteest ;) In terms of style, you could say I'm taking the Hanna Barbera aproach. But I like to learn new stuff, and there's no reason not to at least try to get better :)
This is an area I must learn and thank you for adding such brilliant videos selmiak (nod)
absolutely worth a watch! Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston are the oldschool Disney animators who made the very first disney movies and this is more geared towards cartoony animation like in sam n max or day of the tentacle. If you are going for a more realistic approach... just watch it too, and make more funny animations to break up the serious tone every now and then :-D
Sweet!
Now selmiak what are you waiting for? Make all our game walkcycles already!!! ;)
actually my secret plan with this thread was not to spread knowledge, but to make people fall in love with cool animation techniques and then sign up to our forums (http://binarylegends.cbm8bit.com/forum/index.php) and help us make indiana jones and the 7 cities of gold. But sssht, people get sceptical easily when they get a glimpse of a feeling that they are tricked into working for free on a cool and stylish free game about a cool archeologist and hero...
Watched it all last night -- and loved it! Some of the things I learned from them would be hard to apply to my current favorite technique, which is based around straight lines and rectangular shapes -- but they do make some brilliant points. My favorite part was Appeal, loved the make-overs, they were so clever.
As for the secret plan, if you're looking for free labor, shouldn't you have posted a pixel art tutorial instead? :P