Twelve basic principles of animation: History and Key Facts

Disney's twelve basic principles of animation were introduced by the Disney animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas in their 1981 book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation.[a] The principles are based on the work of Disney animators from the 1930s onwards, in their quest to produce more realistic animation. The main purpose of these principles was to produce an illusion that cartoon characters adhered to the basic laws of physics, but they also dealt with more abstract issues, such as emotional timing and character appeal.

The book has been referred to by some as the "Bible of animation", and some of its principles have been adopted by traditional studios. In 1999, The Illusion of Life was voted the "best animation book[...] of all time" in an online poll done by Animation World Network. While originally intended to apply to traditional, hand-drawn animation, the principles still have great relevance for today's more prevalent computer animation.

Source and attribution

Text excerpted from Twelve basic principles of animation by Wikipedia contributors, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. The extract is abridged and formatting has been adjusted; the adapted text on this page is shared under the same licence. Revision history.