KINAcraft

Motion is where an image starts to feel alive. A ball that falls with the right timing has weight. A character who anticipates before acting has intent. KINAcraft teaches the principles that make motion believable and expressive, so you can make anything move with purpose.

Over eight lessons you build from the foundations of timing and spacing to a short performance that carries a clear intention. Each lesson studies one principle in depth:

• what it is
• why it works
• how master animators have used it
• how to apply it in your own shots

Each lesson follows the same rhythm: Learn, Practice, Build, Refine and Masterpiece. Each one includes worked examples and resources to read, watch and study. Every lesson ends with the Silent Motion Read. You watch your shot with no sound and no explanation, and ask whether the motion alone tells the viewer what is happening and why.

KINOcraft is software agnostic. Work in Blender, Maya or After Effects, or draw by hand. The principles are the same in every medium, and the course is fully self-paced. It is open to beginners and to artists in any discipline who want their work to move better, from animators to FX, layout and motion designers.

Lesson 01: Timing and Spacing, The Soul of Motion

• Timing as the number of frames, and spacing as how far things move between them
• How spacing alone creates acceleration, weight and mood
• Reading timing charts, and planning motion before you animate it
• Masterpiece: a set of bouncing ball studies that read as different materials through timing and spacing alone

Lesson 02: Weight and Force, Make It Feel Heavy

• How mass, momentum and force show up in motion
• Squash and stretch, and the forces that cause them
• Designing motion as a flow of force through a body
• Masterpiece: an object or character lifting, pushing or throwing something whose weight is clear without explanation

Lesson 03: Arcs, The Path of Motion

• Why living things move in arcs
• Tracking arcs and fixing breaks in the path
• Arcs in limbs, heads, tails and secondary objects
• Masterpiece: a shot with clean, tracked arcs, with the arc paths shown

Lesson 04: Anticipation and Action, Prepare the Audience

• Anticipation, action and settle as the shape of every movement
• Scaling anticipation to the size and speed of the action
• Reading intent before an action happens
• Masterpiece: a character action with readable anticipation, a clear action and a settle

Lesson 05: Follow-Through and Overlap, Nothing Stops at Once

• Follow-through, overlapping action and drag
• Offsetting parts so motion flows through a body
• Hair, cloth, tails and loose parts that respond to the main action
• Masterpiece: a shot where secondary parts follow through and overlap convincingly

Lesson 06: Rhythm and Pacing, The Beat of a Shot

• Contrast between fast and slow, holds and action
• Phrasing motion so it reads as a sequence of clear ideas
• Walks and cycles as rhythm, and planning them before animating
• Masterpiece: a walk or cycle with a distinct personality, carried by its rhythm

Lesson 07: The Moving Camera, Motion in the Frame

• How camera movement adds to, or fights with, the motion in a shot
• Pans, tracks and moves that follow action with intent
• Composing motion inside a moving frame
• Masterpiece: a short shot where the camera move supports the character’s action

Lesson 08: Performance and Intent, Verbs, Not Nouns

• Acting through motion: thought, emotion and intention
• Walt Stanchfield’s idea of drawing actions rather than things
• Bringing timing, weight, arcs, anticipation, overlap and rhythm into one performance
• Masterpiece: a short performance shot where a viewer can name what the character wants, from motion alone

What you leave with

• Eight finished motion studies, from bouncing balls to a short performance
• A working vocabulary for analyzing and discussing motion
• A planning habit of reference, thumbnails and timing before you animate
• The foundation for animation, FX, layout and every other Craft in the CG-EH Ecosystem