There are many tips and techniques animators use make their animations more realistic or engaging. Most of the tips we offer here were drawn from an illustrated guide to animation put out by Motion Works >. Most of these ideas are primarily useful for animating characters, but several of the ideas can also be generalized to other types of animation.

  • Squash and stretch
  • Anticipation
  • Secondary action
  • Straight ahead and pose to pose
  • Follow through and overlapping
  • Slow onset and slow outset
  • Staging
  • Timing
  • Exaggeration
  • Sound

You can see them all by continuing to click the "next page" button, or use the sub-menu at the bottom of the page to get to specific ones.

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Squash & stretch  |  Anticipation  |  Secondary action  |  Straight ahead & pose to pose  |  Follow through & overlapping  |  Slow onset & outset  |  Staging  |  Timing |  Exaggeration  |  Sound