12 Basic Principles of Animation

Squash and Stretch

Mercury on the PSP is a good example of Squash and stretch, the player controls a blob of liquid mercury and must solve puzzle's by navigating over tilting surfaces, The Mercury shows realistic movement, it squashes and stretches when pushed into a corner and contorts it's shape.

Anticipation

Dead Space is a an example of bad representation of 'anticipation'; Anticipation is an action performed prior to the 'main' action, in order to prepare the audience for what the character is about to do, but in Dead Space, when aiming with the weapons, there is no anticipation of transition, the gun essentially clips into the players hands, and Isaac (the game's protagonist) suddenly takes up his aiming stance without any preparation.

Staging

In Journey, the player starts the game sitting in the sand, as they move the joystick the character begins to move, the player is naturally drawn up a sand by some eye-catching stone rods in the ground, once the player reaches the top of the dune, the camera pans and the players focus is drawn to a mountain emitting light in the background, this instantly sets up the objective of the game without using text or cut-scenes.

Straight Ahead Action & Pose to Pose

Straight ahead action and pose to pose are both different techniques in animation, using the straight ahead action method the animator starts from point A and draws wantonly frame after frame, pose to pose is where an animation maps out poses and fills in the missing frames after ward, Typically in video games Straight ahead action is never used as it wouldn't work within the context.

Follow Through and Overlapping Action

Assassins Creed lll (or any of the Assassins Creed games in general) are a great example of overlapping action, since the characters in the game are usually wearing multiple layers of clothing of varying weight, so you get a real sense of all the different materials weighing down on the Conor's legs and reacting to Conor's movements, When he is running for example, the material is sent into the air as it collides with his legs and is swept back by the wind and each material is affected slightly differently.

Slow in and Slow Out

I couldn't really show exampled of this using still images, but a game that makes good use of the 'slow in and slow out' principle is Red Dead Redemption, in Red Dead Redemption, when the player pushes forward on the joystick Marston (The games protagonist) takes a second to build up speed, even just to make it up to the slowest walking speed, and when the player tries to stop while running, Martson will use his lean back on feet and use his body weight to slow himself to a halt, rather than just stopping on the spot. 

Arcs

 There isn't much to say about Arcs, arcs are the effect of gravity and pivot points on the movement of an object, in the case of Super Mario ll (or any game with the ability to jump) Mario jumps and follows an arc, as he is bough back to the ground by gravity.

Secondary Action

In Dead Space in one of the animations for final Boss, The Boss grabs Isaac and pulls him to the ground, the primary animation is that of Isaac being grabbed and pulled into the air by the monster, but Isaac doesn't just let the monster take him without a fight, he screams, shakes his head in despair and struggles, even as the monster drags him into the air he desperately claws at the ground.

Secondary Action can be used to add some extra character and context to a motion, for example, the monster could have just gabbed Isaac and pulled him into the air, but adding Isaac's struggle adds an element of desperation and adds to the feeling of urgency and horror.

Timing

Timing is about the number of frames it takes to perform a certain action, it can be used to a dramatic effect.

Exaggeration 

Exaggeration is used in Crash Bandicoot when Crash performs in spin attack. When crash performs his spin attack his body becomes an almost unrecognisable blur, this creates an impression of speed and power, which makes the attack feel more effective than if his body were simply to spin at a realistic rate and without exaggerated forms.

Solid Drawing

Solid drawing is the act of drawing a character or object in an animation, and taking into account the object as a 3D form, if a character turns around and their proportions change as a result of the animator not properly taking into account how the character looks from all sides, this would be a poor example of solid drawing, solid drawing is usually achieved by creating a character sheet beforehand and using a pose to pose method of animation.

Solid drawing is never really an issue within video games as they tend to use 3D models which are always consistent from every angle, or sprites, which are limited in number and easy to quality assure.

Appeal

Appeal is how a character appeals to an audience, an appealing character doesn't necessarily need to be a character that the player can sympathise with, but it can be a horrific monster, but as long as it evokes some kind of emotional response, the character can generally considered to have 'appeal'