What many animators find hard to understand is just how incredibly fast a fast action actually occurs. The average Snap action accounts for about 80 to 90 percent of the motion in a move (the anticipation accounting for the other 10-20 percent).  But the period of an average Snap action is one or two frames, at the most!  These moves happen so fast that you could literally blink and miss them.  Of course, you won't blink, because the anticipating movements will have cued you to expect something.

If you just don't accept that nine tenths of a punch can happen in a thirtieth of a second, you'll end up animating snaps that are three or four frames long.  And they will look, I kid you not, awful.  Your punches won't really look like punches until you bite the bullet and try a heavily anticipated snap of a single frame.

When I first started working with Snap, I wondered "How can something look so realistic, when I know that real people can't possibly move that way?"  Well, I'll tell you a dirty little secret that I've discovered:  real people actually do move that way.

Here's a quick little punch from Jackie Chan (which I sincerely hope I won't get sued over!)  Notice the super slow-motion to the left..  The main movement of the punch happens in the course of a single frame (told you!)  The action surrounding the punch before and after help the audience to perceive it correctly, without detracting from its impact.  And hey, if you don't want your animated punches to look like Jackie's, then I just don't understand you.


Anyway, I guess I've just about talked Snap and Ancitipation to death.  Are you about ready to actually start using this principle in animation?  Great!


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