The next principle of animation we're gonna learn in this  lesson is anticipation. And if there was a theme to all of these principles,  I would say it's a theme of clarity  and anticipation would be at the top of that list  in prioritizing clarity in your animation,  making sure your audience knows what's happening. So anticipation is an action  before the main action that calls attention to the subject  so that the viewer knows something is about  to happen without anticipation,  the viewer might not register the action you're animating at  all or as well  as they could if you had added some anticipation. Some common examples of anticipation  that are physically required to do the action  are things like throwing or kicking a ball  and swinging a bat or a golf club  because you can't perform those actions if you don't first  do the opposite of the direction of the main motion. For me to throw a baseball  or any kind of ball, I need to wind up my arm  backwards in the motion that I'm going to be headed. So I need to go backward  before I go forward and throw the ball.

So that's a common physical requirement. I can't throw a ball by just doing that. That's more like pushing a ball. Um, so there are physical requirements to some motions  that they require anticipation. One other common example  that falls in this category is jumping. So let's take a look at me out in the woods  jumping on a log.

So for this example of anticipation,  we're gonna look at a simple jump. If I was to not anticipate the jump,  I couldn't jump on top of this log. You know, no anticipation means going from straight leg,  it's just physically impossible. So when you're looking at character animation, you have  to think of what is, um, you know,  the character can actually physically do  to make the motion look believable. And this also can apply to motion graphics and whatnot  because the anticipation also tells the viewer  that they're about to do something. So you pay attention to it before the action occurs.

So if I was to just jump straight from here,  your eyes wouldn't be ready for it. Uh, just to, for me to physically be able to do it, I have  to anticipate that jump, which  for a jump means going down before I go up. So if I was to try to jump with no anticipation,  I just physically couldn't do it,  but if I anticipate it, I go down and now I can jump. So you can use this principle in all different  kinds of ways in your animation. Hope that helps. So anticipation is also referred to as an antic  that's kind of slang for anticipation.

So you might hear that term thrown around. You might need more antic or do less antic on this motion. So that's just something to be aware of  as you get into animation more. And so we've seen  that anticipation can be physically required of an action  to perform that action,  but it can also be used at, in the animators toolkit, just  to call attention to something so  that the viewer can register that's about to occur. And that way the audience will know the action is about  to happen and then they can sit back  and enjoy the way it happens. So that's a big distinction.

We wanna make sure that we're not doing things  that the audience can't see. And anticipation is a way to signal to the audience  that something is about to occur, to look over here. Anticipation can also be used to convey a sense of emotion  or, uh, the mental state  of a character if you're doing character animation. And anticipations don't always have to be big  and obvious, like bringing your arm  back to throw a baseball. They can be very, very subtle. They could be only a few frames, just like how squash  and stretch was only just three frames.

And antic could be very short, very small,  but it just helps just that little bit more  to call attention to something  or to help convey an emotional state of a character. So let's take a look at a couple of examples of a head turn. So the first is gonna be no antic. The second is gonna be a small antic,  and then the third is going to be a big antic. So here is me acting first. We have no antic that communicates surprise or urgency.

Next we have a very small antic,  which signals the head is about to turn  and it's a more neutral state of the character. Finally, we have a really big antic that's a bit slow,  which shows a heightened emotional state of the character. So with this example, we also showed  that anticipation can be used to convey a sense  of the emotional state of a character. And like the first example that we watched,  anticipation can be excluded from the animation  intentionally in the cases of surprise  or an urgent moment for the character  or if we're intentionally trying to surprise the audience. But that those are very limited cases. And normally we wanna make sure the audience is coming along  on the ride with us in our animation  and they're aware of what's happening.

But it is a time honored gag to  build anticipation and then not pay it off. So have it anticipate one action  and then have a surprise  of something else totally different happening. So that's one way to kind of, you know, keep it interesting  as well for the audience. And a, a nice tweak to using anticipation to build suspense  and then not pay off what you're expecting to happen. It'd be like me, uh, raring back to throw a baseball  and I'm really raring back,  and then a baseball falls outta the ceiling  and hits me on the head or something. So in this lesson we learned what anticipation was  and that sometimes it's referred to as an antic.

We learned that anticipation can be physically required  of emotion, and we also learned that it could be used  to convey an emotional state  of a character just depending on how much and how little  or at all that you use the antic. And we also discussed the kind of building of expectations  and breaking those down using anticipation in an interesting  way to create a surprise if that's  what you're going for as well. So in the next lesson, we are going to use this principle  and we're actually gonna build on the previous two  that we've already learned and add that to our repertoire  of the animation we're gonna do for a pair of scissors. So I will see you in the next lesson  where we will animate these scissors.