Math and physics in animation

Had a questions today regarding math in animation — I figured I’d share it with my answer here:

Question:
Do you think it’s worth it to use the mathematical algorithms to figure an animation out with more precision?

Answer:
“Animation is a caricature of real motion.” — Which means you use real life and physics as references as guidelines and you exaggerate it in the animation. So you may be wondering, how do you exaggerate math, right? Well, you exaggerate it the sense that it still somewhat follows the rules of the physical world.

Example with bouncing: the arc shape represents the calculations to make a ball fall correctly. So by stretching or pulling this arc, you are exaggerating the calculations. (it’s all in the numbers, we just see it visually).

Example with rotation: Sonic the Hedgehog spinning super fast before he moves. That does NOT make sense in the real world. But it works because the spin moves and leans in the correct direction as his movement and he stretches as he spins faster. So it’s exaggerated, but follows the rules of the physical world.

So bottom line: Don’t think about numbers. I look at the shape of which the numbers create and manipulate them to work in the animation. You want pretty curves To make your animation more interesting, vary these curves (height, width), but only if it follows the general rules of what makes sense with real motion.

(this question is in reference to an earlier post: http://doublealee.com/blog/archives/580 )