• Work in passes to simplify complex movement into individual drawings
• Understand and apply the successive bending of joints
• Apply basic overlapping action based on the main action

Preparation:

Reading, watching and tutorials on walk cycles can be very helpful, as can real-world observation. In my class, we go outside, playing Red-Light, Green-Light, to isolate the key poses of a walk cycle. We observe how our weight shifts each step and how our feet contact and lift from the ground. We also practice character walks, feeling how changes in body position, posture, and weight shifts can transform a walk.

Assignment Instructions:

Animate a two-legged character of your own creation walking in place. Your character should take 2 full steps in 24 drawings remaining in the center of the page as though on a moving walkway.

Use this timing chart to plan where your keys and breakdowns will fall. Note that this indicates only the number of the drawing for each key pose, not the position on the page where the foot will fall! 

Details:

• Animate at 12fps on 1s using the timing chart below to determine when you will hit your key poses.
• Use a field guide and motion guides for the ground. (The ground is not the bottom of the page)
• The character must walk in place in the center of the page.
• Animate pose to pose. i.e. start with the key poses (contact, passing), do the breakdown drawings (low, high), plot your arcs for the knees and feet, and then in-between. 
• Work in passes: start with the body, head, and legs only on one layer. You want to get this right before spending time on arms, details, and overlapping action!!
• If you’ve never done this before, use a simple character made of basic shapes and concentrate on avoiding common problems below. 
• If you are feeling confident, challenge yourself with extra overlapping action, an unusual gait or attitude, or a front view or ¾ view walk.
• Add some overlapping action (hair, tail, clothing, floppy ears, etc. – but add this at the very end after you have got the walk perfect!)
• Video tutorials with step-by-step instructions
• Extra Credit: Add a panning background to your walk using this tutorial: https://youtu.be/INn8_1hVH8A

Recommended schedule

Depending on the time available for the assignment, I recommend doing a first pass pencil test (body, head, and legs) and getting feedback from the instructor and class. Look for the common problems below in the first pass so they can be fixed before adding arms, details, and overlapping action.

Common Problems in walk cycles: 

• The foot does not seem to slide on the ground
• The inconsistent slide (wrong spacing)
• Volume variability in the limbs (limbs getting longer/shorter)
• Foot bending unnaturally
• Erratic body movement from inconsistent drawing
• Not enough drawings (12 drawings per step – 24 drawings total for two steps)

Contributed by Corrie Francis Parks

My method of teaching the bouncing balls starts with real-world observation, a fun in-class activity that gets students up, outside and hopefully not breaking things! 

You can find the assignment details here, which can be modified to your own particular goals and timeline.

And thanks to the pandemic, I’ve now got some online tutorials on how to get started.

Real-World Observation videos

Getting started with arcs and timing

Part 1: Planning and Keys

This demo highlights the key poses of a walk cycle through real world observation, then takes them to the drawing board in a first pass.

Part 2: Inbetweening and Plotting arcs

Once you have your key poses, how do you connect them. This demo will help you keep your limb length consistent and moving on a smooth arc and 

Part 3: Adding Arms

Animators work in passes when doing complex motions. Save the arm swing until after you get the body and legs correct. 

Part 4: Troubleshooting common problems

Analyze your work in progress so you can fix any problem areas before cleaning up.

Part 5: Clean up and overlapping action

Once the underlying action is satisfactory, add little details like overlapping action that are driven by the main action. 

Bonus tutorial: 

Adding a panning background to your cycle:

Contributed by Corrie Francis Parks

I get this question all the time from people diving into the digital drawing realm. I’m not a viral Youtube reviewer, but here’s a quick guide to what’s what when you are looking for digital drawing equipment.

Graphics tablet or Drawing tablet?

A graphics tablet is something you plug into the computer and it allows you to use a pen like a mouse. The pen is usually pressure sensitive, so you can have good line quality (thinner lines when you press softly, thicker lines when you press hard) and some are tilt sensitive as well (some Photoshop brushes are designed to change based on pen tilt – just like a calligraphy pen or paint brush). Sometimes there are buttons on the side that you can program with your favorite keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl+Z!!) so you don’t have to keep reaching for the keyboard.

Up side: these tend to be MUCH cheaper than screen tablets. Also, they are more sturdy and portable, good for tossing in your backpack and taking to school without much fear of damage.

Down side is you have to look at your computer screen while your hand is off to the side. It takes some time to get your brain used to this coordination, but give it a week of steady use and your drawing coordination will improve and get up to the level of drawing on paper. #ProTip Sometimes it’s helpful to tape a piece of paper on top of the tablet surface which give you more resistance and makes it feel more like drawing on paper.

Drawing Tablets:

This is where you can draw directly on a screen with that pressure sensitive pen. This means you are looking right at your drawing, just like you would on paper so the hand-eye coordination is natural. Usually, this is a separate device you plug into your computer, so you aren’t drawing directly on the computer screen.

Upside: Drawing with these is easier! You are much more efficient when you can look at your drawing. Most have the same sort of programmable buttons, pen pressure sensitivity etc. as graphics tablets.

Downside: These can be pricey. There’s more things to plug in – power cords, USB and HDMI connections, so check compatibility with your computer. Also, drawing on a screen just feels different than paper so it takes getting used to. You can get a clear screen protector that will give you that slight friction that replicates paper and that can make the experience better.

Tablets and touch screen computers:

Many of the high-end tablets like the iPadPro and SurfacePro have great drawing and animation apps, and an optional pen you can buy to use with them. And many newer computers will convert into a table.

Upside: If you have one of these already you can make animation without buying a new device or connecting anything to your computer. And these are quintessential portable device.

Downside: Tablet computers can generally run any animation program just like a normal computer (assuming you’ve got it well spec’d out), so it’s just the matter of finding a good pen that works with your OS. With a tablet (iPad, and the like), you need to research which apps will work best for your purposes (see below). Pen quality varies GREATLY from device to device. (If you are in the Apple ecosystem, the Apple Pen is excellent.)

Also, output can vary greatly from apps. Check that you can export a frame sequence from the program and transfer it to your computer so you can edit and work with it like any other animation sequence. Some apps will only let you export a compressed video file.

Brands and prices:

Wacom tablets are great – well-built, sensitive and will last a long time. I bought my first graphics tablet, a Wacom Intuos 2 back in 2004 and the thing still works! I upgraded to a cintiq in 2008 and that still works, even tough I’ve since upgraded a few more times. Wacom products almost always end up at the top of the review lists. I personally think the investment is worth it, if you can manage it (ok, enough gushing!).

However, if the price-point is outside your budget right now, there are other options. I have not reviewed any of these, but others have. It’s always good to read outside reviews on electronic equipment before you buy (amazon reviews can be helpful, but I would put more stock in an artist who has reviewed a lot of tablets, like Brad Colbow and  Frenden.)

Brad Colbow’s Top 5 Drawing tablets

Frenden Reviews Huion’s Graphic Tablets

Frenden Reviews Monoprice Graphics Tablets

LavenderTowne Reviews old and new Graphics Tablets

Top 10 Android Drawing Apps

Some anecdotal reviews from my students and colleagues:

“The drawing experience with the iPad is surprisingly good. If a student has an iPad, an apple pencil, and a Mac computer they can use Astropad* for $30 (unfortunately unavailable for PCs as of now) to make a pretty good cintiq alternative. Despite the fact that a tablet for a PC is what I’d recommend, I mention this set up as a lot of the students might already have these products lying around. I’ve known some people who have liked Huion and heard even better things about Xpen. Both brands have drawing tablets for about $30 with good pressure sensitivity (but no tilt).” Ryley

*note: Newer Mac laptops have Sidecar, which also lets you use your (newer) iPad/apple pencile as a cintiq. I’ve tried this out, it’s works ok, but was a bit laggy for me in PS. But in that scenario you can use programs like Photoshop, Adobe Animate, Krita or Clip Studio running off your computer, in addition to occasionally using your iPad itself as an animation machine.

“I use an XPPen Display tablet (XP Pen 22E Pro) its $750 (so on the upper end) but has been good to me for the last few years. They also have some non Display options that are cheaper. I have also heard good things about the Huion range.” – Zoe

If you have a tablet you love, let us know!

Making a home shooting station:

Animation is simply a series of photographs played in sequence at a set frame rate. So, if you have any kind of camera, a way to keep it stable, and a video editing program that can import an image sequence (iMovie, Premiere, even Photoshop will do this), you are set. If you record images on your phone with a stopmotion app, it will usually do the sequencing for you. This will mostly deal with making animation with your phone, since that seems to be the most accessible option for students in a pinch.

Whatever kind of camera you use (DSLR, point and shoot, phone, tablet etc) you want to be sure is that you don’t get any vibration when you trigger the camera, so having a Bluetooth remote is a good idea. At the very least, set the shutter to a timed release of a few seconds so you can pull your hand away before the picture is taken.

The phone downshooter set-up:

You can use any combo of phone mount and tripod to create a downshooter station at home. If you don’t already have a selfie stick or phone tripod here’s an inexpensive one that is bluetooth triggered: Cell phone selfie stick with blue-tooth remote included $9.99

Or if you just need a bluetooth remote: Bluetooth remote compatible with most phones $6.99

Or, for a little extra, this overhead phone holder can clamp right to the table, making setup a lot easier (no remote though). Phone Overhead Camera Mount $20.90

If you can’t get any of these things, there are other ways to build a tripod out of cardboard boxes or shelving! See the photo album at the end of this post for some very creative DIY down shooters made by students at UMBC!

Get the app:

While you can make animation by just taking a sequence of pictures, it’s really handy to have an app with features like onion-skinning, guide layers, importing sound etc.

Stopmotion Studio Pro is cross-platform and available on Apple App store and Google Play for $4.99. It allows you to have manual control over the camera exposure, which is important for backlit stopmotion and for reducing flicker in the final video. You can also use your headphones as a remote trigger, or an apple watch, a wireless Bluetooth remote There is also a free version with limited functionality. I’d recommend splurging on the Pro version though, it will make your work easier and higher quality.

Here’s how to set up and use the app. Also there appear to be a lot of tutorials from users online about using some of the more advanced features like mouth animation and green screen.

I have also used OSnap! which is for iPhones and iPads only. The camera shutter can be triggered by a loud noise like a clap, so you don’t need a remote. The Pro version allows you to shoot HD/4K and have an unlimited number of projects.

Making a downshooter:

Mount your phone to the tripod. Open the app so you can see the composition of the frame. Using strong tape, such as duct tape or gaffers tape, secure the tripod to something above where you’ll be shooting. This could be a box, shelf, chair – get creative about it if you need to! Double check the composition of the frame in the app to make sure the phone is at the right height. For lighting, use a desk lamp, or a pair of desk lamps.

You’re all set to shoot some animation! You can use this set up for downshooter stopmotion or for shooting drawings in a flipbook or on paper.

Other set-ups:

If you have a DSLR camera, or even some point and shoot cameras that can tether to a laptop, you can set that up on a tripod and use it as a downshooter. I have in the past, taped my tripod hanging off the top of a bookshelf and weighed it down with a stack of big books for extra stability (sorry don’t have a picture of that one!)

Some tripod heads will tilt down enough so you can shoot almost flat, though the legs sometimes get in the shot (you can crop them out if you work small). Or you can get a horizontal adapter for the tripod that will let the camera stick out over a table. I like this one from Manfrotto.

Stopmotion Studio Pro has versions for Macs and PCS that tether to a camera. Also check out iStopmotion as another somewhat affordable option for Mac users. And of course, Dragonframe is the industry standard and you can get a big student discount. Before buying software, you should always check that the model of your camera is compatible with the program!

Other resources:

Lizzy Hobbs has an even simpler downshooter set-up made with a cardboard box:

Gina Kamentsky’s Tutorial for making a cardboard rostum camera stand.

And just a reminder here at the end that you can actually set up any camera and just take a bunch of pictures as you animate, download them to your computer. You don’t need software to animate! Just go make something move!

I talk about our brains and perception a lot in class. Animation is just a weird thing. It’s like real life, but twisted and distorted in a colorful wonderful way. That’s a lot for our brains to handle and when images are whipping by at 24fps, the more help we can give our audience, the more enjoyable and satisfying the experience of watching animation will be. That’s where staging come into play.

Staging is how you present a shot to your viewers. Like a theater director or choreographer, we must always be aware of what the audience can see and how they will interpret it. Everything happening on screen works together and brings the viewer the experience we want them to have in the most efficient way possible.

When I first introduce staging to students, I break it into three parts to help clarify different things we should be thinking of when we design animation:

1. Where You Place Your Subject or Characters

Different camera angles and shots have different effects on a viewer. A close-up shot is intimate and direct. The emphasis is on emotion. A long shot allows us to take in the character’s surroundings and understand the context of the scene. A Dutch angle will heighten the tension in a scene, while a flat camera angle will provide a stage for comedy. Which shot you choose directly affects how your viewer will experience the film, so stage appropriately!

Additionally, what’s going on in the background can affect how the viewer understands the action. A cluttered, busy background will fight for the audience’s attention and your character may get lost. Find ways to pull your character out of the background through lighting, composition, or focus.

2. How You Pose Your Subject and Characters

A quick glance at a drawing should give us enough information to immediately tell what the character is doing or their attitude. The right amount of exaggeration is the key to a strong pose. We are used to seeing things happen in the real world, but when it comes to animation, we expect more than real life.

Here’s an in-class thumbnailing exercise (thumbnail drawings: fast, “thinking” drawings that allow you to quickly explore poses and actions). Draw a pose that conveys one of the following words:

• angry
• delighted
• disappointed
• afraid
• sleepy
• impatient
• etc.

Now, continue thumbnailing and “push the pose” further by exaggerating the attitude. See if you can push it too far so the attitude becomes unclear, then pull it back just a bit to find that happy spot.

When staging a shot, consider what you can see in a split second. A good way to do this is to look at the silhouette of the pose (animators call this the “silhouette test”). If you can generally tell what is going on without all the little details, you know the viewer will not have any trouble.

3. How You Time the Action

Animation is a visually dense medium and our brains can get overwhelmed taking it all in. In order to have clear staging, be deliberate about what actions are happening on screen. Sometimes, the best option is to have only one thing happening at a time. Or two actions can relate and complement each other if they are carefully planned and staged.

This video by UMBC student Tory Van Dine is an excellent example of staging as it relates to the timing of action. Our attention shifts constantly from the crab to its antagonists, with action/reaction as the driving force of the animation.

Adding pauses and holds at the appropriate moment plays a big role in how we process the action on screen. Give your audience a bit of “breathing room” every so often to catch up and get mentally ready for the next action, especially if you have more than one thing going on. Take this video by UMBC student Jacqueline Wojcik. The animation on the skeleton is fantastic, but we are so captivated by it we completely miss the movements of the owl on the left. Or, if our attention strays to the owl, we potentially miss an important moment of the skeleton’s antics. Allowing more of a back and forth between the two characters would allow both the skeleton and the owl to have their 15 seconds of fame.

There you go, that’s how I teach the nuances of staging! What examples and explanations do you find work best for your students?

When I first read the explanation of follow through and overlapping action in the Illusion of Life, I thought “This is about as confusing as it gets!” Johnston and Thomas’ description makes these two principles out to be awkward dance partners, stepping on each other’s cartoonish feet. I re-read carefully and went looking for other explanations online, most of which parroted the Illusion of Life. Then I decided to come up with my own explanation.

First, every action is a complex choreography of a primary action (a jump, a bow, a twirl, a trip) and one or more smaller actions connected to the primary action. These smaller actions are the things that make the primary action believable and interesting.

Every primary action has a moment of preparation and a moment of recovery. These smaller actions that bookend the primary action are anticipation and follow through.

Let’s illustrate: stop reading and jump up as high as you can, trying to touch the ceiling or the sky. (This is a fun and only slightly dangerous activity to do in the classroom). If we consider the movement of the body through the air as the primary action, then the crouching movement we make before we start moving upwards is the anticipation of the jump. Try jumping without crouching down first — it doesn’t work very well. Every action has a pre-action that most often moves in the opposite direction of the main action. Think about pulling your leg back before a kick or tilting your head back before a sneeze.

Every primary action has a moment of preparation and a moment of recovery: anticipation -> action -> follow through.

When you land from your jump, you will automatically bend your knees to cushion your body hitting the ground, once again going into a slight crouch. This crouch that follows the primary action is the follow through. You could think of it as the anti-anticipation. Can you land a jump without any sort of cushion or bend in your knees? (Ouch!) We need that moment of recovery to slow the momentum of the primary action and come gradually to a stop. Often times, we have to overshoot our final resting spot to account for this momentum and then settle into our final resting spot (overshoot is another, more specific animation term associated with follow through). In more complex actions, the follow through of one movement may blend into the anticipation of the next movement. For example, in a walk cycle the low point key frame is both the follow through of the previous step and the anticipation of the next step.

Where then, does overlapping action dance if not partnered with follow through (as suggested in The Illusion of Life)? Overlapping action also is connected to the primary action. It’s realm is all the things that flop, flow, flap and follow behind the central mass of the subject. Tails, capes, hair, jewelry, sometimes even heads and arms. Overlapping action follows the same line of action as the primary mass, but it does so a few frames behind the primary mass. Overlapping action often involves breaking a curve or joint, i.e. going from C curve to an S curve back to a C curve.

You might have a good deal of overlapping action in your follow through stage, which is why they are often confused or at least grouped together. However, overlapping action will also appear in your anticipation phase. And in your primary action phase. So, it is not just related to follow through.

Secondary Action is our final lonely dancer. But it too is connected to primary action. Secondary action is something that is under the character’s control that embellishes or enhances the primary action in a way that adds character or personality. The difference between the embellishments of overlapping action and secondary action is that secondary actions are voluntary on the part of the character, while overlapping action is (mostly) involuntary. We can’t control how our hair flows in the wind or our cape trails behind us as we jump, but we can control the little flick of our head and the wiggle of our fingers that show how delighted we are feeling. This little flick of the head and finger wiggle are secondary actions to the primary action of jumping, while the cape and hair are overlapping actions. Secondary actions are voluntary, driven by the character; overlapping actions are driven by momentum and physics, thus involuntary.

Okay, yes, once we start layering these things together they do all start to tread on each other’s toes and roll into some great animation. Developing a precise vocabulary is important for analysis and description, especially when trying to figure out what exactly is going wrong with an animation (“I think you need more follow through on that action…” “The breaking of the curve on the overlapping action is not quite right…” “Maybe add some secondary action to give a stronger sense of the character’s mood…”)

At some point we can then step back and enjoy the complex intertwining of all these principles around a single action. Anyone up for a dance party?

First off, Alan Becker has created a series of videos that explain the classic 12 principles of animation very well in a non-Disney way. I have a whole 90 minute lecture on these that I used to do, but I think students get it just as well if they watch these videos as their reading assignment for the week. I also assign them Chapter 3 (Timing and Spacing) from Richard Williams The Animator’s Survival Kit. Then I hold them accountable for identifying those principles in a written assignment, a classroom exercise, and a hands-on animation assignment. Here’s how it works:

This is the first of 12 videos. The full playlist is here. (Thanks Alan, you are amazing!!! My students love you!)

At the beginning of class, we make a list of the 12 principles on the board; I like having lists that students can look at when they run out of ideas. Then I hand out the flashcards:

Each card has one fundamental on it. Then we start watching films. Each student is responsible for finding an example of their fundamental. They point it out and then can hand in their card. We go until everyone had handed in their card, then I reshuffle and deal again.

I start with the classic Animator vs Animation by (again) Alan Becker.

The following fundamentals are the ones I find to be the most useful for recognizing in-situ and class discussion, but with the list on the board, students will often jump in with other ones they recognize as well.

• timing and spacing
• squash n stretch
• arcs
• staging
• easing (slow in/out)
• anticipation
• follow through
• overlapping action
• secondary action

Inevitably, this brings up opportunities to clarify and discuss some common hang-ups and misunderstanding with the 12 Principles, such as the difference between follow through, overlapping action, and secondary action, or the three parts of staging. We keep watching films and reshuffling the deck until we run out of time. Here are a few other favorite bits of animation I use for this project.

After introducing the Animation Fundamentals (my version of the 12 Principles) in reading and class lectures, our first big assignment is a Group Stopmotion Extravaganza. The prompt is as follows:

You are a small stop-motion studio commissioned to create a 15–20 second animation for Instagram. Your goal is to reinvent an ordinary object and turn it into something unexpected that surprises and delights the audience.

To prepare, we watch work by PES and Jan Svankmajer and students individually complete a series of basic timing exercises, which get them familiar with the Dragonframe interface and the Animation Fundamentals. But my secret agenda for this group project right at the beginning of the semester is that it levels the playing field through collaborative learning.

Collaborative learning, which is different than group projects, focuses on students collectively searching for creative solutions as they explore and apply the course material in a setting of mutual accountability.

From one of the seminal texts on the subject: “Collaborative learning has as its main feature a structure that allows for student talk: students are supposed to talk with each other….and it is in this talking that much of the learning occurs.” (Golub, 1988)

While Golub is referring to students learning how to write through listening to each other talk, the idea that conversation can enhance student learning applies across disciplines. I’m sitting in the animation lab as I write this post, listening to groups of students talk to each other as they animate objects under the camera. They are thinking out loud, discussing how fast or slow something should move, what arc it will follow, how to apply squash and stretch. Those that have already incorporated words like “easing” and “anticipation” into their vocabulary, use those words in context and other students adapt to that vocabulary.

For this particular project, I find three is the magic number for group dynamics. With three, everyone has something to do and everyone’s opinion is heard. Every student has to animate some part of the final piece, though they are allowed to divide up the work according to their strengths and weaknesses. Inevitably, the confident, experienced animators do a lot of the moving and the less confident animators do more of the camera work and constructing of backgrounds. Though this may not seem “fair” on the surface, I’ve noticed that these less confident students absorb a lot from watching their peers make decisions about timing and spacing. The experienced students do a good deal of one-on-one instruction in directing the animation, attention which I could never give to every student who needs it.

I’ve found that the key to making this not a burden for the more experienced students is to make the environment low stress. If the project isn’t rushed, the capable students won’t try to take over and finish it themselves, but will patiently direct the less experienced students and help them make excellent animation.

The other residual benefit of this collaborative project is that everyone is crammed in the lab for several hours working energetically and the class sort of comes together as a cohort. So the rest of the semester there’s a level of familiarity that makes critique more comfortable and the classroom atmosphere more collaborative as a whole. Even though out class is primarily focused on drawn animation, this initial stopmotion project targets a lot of our learning goals in an efficient way.

At the end of the project, I ask students to take an individual survey with the following questions:

For you personally, what do you feel like you learned the most from this project? The “what you learned” questions seem corny, but students take ownership over their outcomes by articulating them, and the project becomes more than just an assignment.

How did you divide the work in your group? Did you feel there was a fair input on everyone’s part? Which part of the project did you animate? Were your ideas discussed as a group and completed as a group? This is a chance for group members to anonymously let me know if someone wasn’t contributing, but it also asks students to think specifically about their roles in the group and how different roles can still achieve a balanced contribution.

What do you feel was your biggest contribution to the project? This helps students to specifically articulate their strengths and how they approached the project.

Anything else you’d like me to know, or suggestions for future classes that do this project? This question has helped me hone the project over the years to where it runs pretty smoothly!

How do you work collaborative learning into your classes?

References:

Golub, Jeff. “Focus on Collaborative Learning: Classroom Practices in Teaching English.” Focus on Collaborative Learning: Classroom Practices in Teaching English, National Council of Teachers of English, 1989, pp. 1–1.

Learning Outcomes

• Break down a piece of dialogue into its phonemes and match them to animation using Dragonframe.
• Experiment with abstract pattern animation in the context of Visual Music Animation as pioneered by animators Oskar Fischinger and Norman Mclaren.

Preparation

This collaborative assignment functions as an exquisite corpse, where each student has a section of a song and the resulting animation can be edited together into a longer work. Though any song or dialogue can be used, scat has the benefit of forcing students to specifically pay attention to sounds rather than words.

Watch the following films as inspiration for the assignment.

Visual Music by Oskar Fischinger: https://vimeo.com/album/3111432

Assignment

Design Phonemes: Take some time to research animated character designs. Then based on one of the three mouth sets provided, design your phonemes and construct a full set that you feel compliments the assigned audio clip.

Breakdown Audio: Following the Dragonframe Lip-Sync Tutorial, import the psd file for your chosen mouthset, break down the voice track and assign phonemes accordingly. Play back the audio with assigned phonemes and if you like what you see export your test.

Test Animated Background Patterns: Test background animation by swapping various patterns under the camera in Dragonframe. You should animate about 240 frames (about 10 seconds at 24fps) exhibiting a variety of experimentation. Export movie with audio 16:9 MP4 at 24fps from Dragonframe.

• Experiment with timing. Swap out patterned sheets in 1’s, 2’s and 3’s at 24fps. Play them back at different speeds and note how different speeds create different kinetic sensations on the screen.
• Try controlling the intensity of animation by juxtaposing patterns that contrast compared to patterns that are similar. What happens when you keep the color and shapes the same while changing the scale and orientation from frame to frame? Or preserve the scale and orientation while changing color and shape?
• Notice how vertical patterns speed up the animated image while horizontal patterns cause it to stutter and slow down.
• Consider the underlying rhythm of the music (not just the scat) and see how you can match or compliment the rhythm with the patterns 

Final Animation: Final animation should be done by swapping background patterns in a rhythm informed by the previous testing while simultaneously replacing phonemes following the frame-by-frame breakdown as exported to your Dragonframe Checksheet. Beside swapping phonemes, your mouth should also translate up, down and from side to side in ways that complement the music you are animating too.

• Swap patterns to animate background.
• Replace Phonemes as indicated in DF Checksheet.
• Animate the position of changing mouth shapes up, down and from side to side to accentuate performance.

Tutorials and Resources

Dragonframe Lip-Sync Tutorial.Pdf 

Lip-sync Charts and Face Set.zip

Examples