Using squash and stretch

The animators at Disney, notably Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, stated that the animation principles were discovered instead of defined. Among those discoveries, arguably the most important is the fact that organic bodies squash and stretch its shapes during movement.

Most people associate this principle only with cartoony and exaggerated animation, but small amounts of squash and stretch are very welcome to "realistic" types of motion to help emphasize extreme poses. That's why it's a good idea to have a squash and stretch enabled character rig.

How to do it...

1. Open the file 007-Stretch.blend. It has our character Otto making a jump, just like the result of our previous recipe on anticipation. To enhance the feeling of impulse and help lead the eyes of our audience, we're going to add a little squash and stretch to the torso and legs.

   First, the torso. Our rig enables us to stretch the torso region by simply scaling the desired controllers. In our scene, the character...