Timing for Animation, 40th Anniversary Edition, 3rd Edition
by Harold Whitaker, Tom Sito, John Halas
Overlapping Action
It is usually a good idea in animation to have a time lag between the movements of different parts of the figure. This is called overlapping action. In a slow, gentle action this may not be necessary, but in a more violent movement it helps to give fluidity.
If several characters are dancing in unison on the screen, that is, using the same animation traced-off several times, their movements look much more alive and fluid with an overlap of one or two frames on some of the characters. The result is that these characters are just out of sync with the others, which appears less mechanical than having them exactly in unison. Trained soldiers marching, when the effect should be rather machine-like, should of course be timed exactly ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access