In this lesson, students are introduced to the Intro to 3D Animation module and get a clear preview of the animation principles they’ll be learning next. They’ll begin shifting from general Blender tools into core animation concepts like physics, timing, squash and stretch, anticipation, arcs, exaggeration, and appeal.

In this lesson, students learn how arcs make animation feel more natural, dynamic, and believable by reflecting the way objects move under gravity. They’ll animate cannonballs fired at different angles so they can practice creating realistic curved motion paths with proper timing and spacing.

In this lesson, students learn how an object’s physical properties, like mass, volume, density, weight, shape, hardness, elasticity, and material, affect the way it should move in animation. They’ll study different Blender examples to better understand how observing real-world behavior helps create motion that feels believable and intentional.

In this lesson, students learn how follow-through and overlapping action help create believable momentum by showing that different parts of an object or character do not all move at the same speed. They’ll animate both a hard-surface Bumba Box and a flexible flower so they can practice creating motion that feels weighted, delayed, and more natural.

In this lesson, students learn how different forces, like gravity, friction, applied force, tension, spring motion, drag, magnetism, buoyancy, and muscular force, affect the way objects move. They’ll practice animating these forces in Blender so they can create more believable motion based on real-world physics and observation.

In this lesson, students learn how squash and stretch helps animation feel more alive by showing weight, flexibility, gravity, and impact. They’ll use the Escargot rig to practice deforming a character as it moves across a log, building on the classic bouncing ball exercise in a more character-driven way.

In this lesson, students begin exploring the principles of animation in 3D by focusing on slow-in and slow-out, which creates the feeling of acceleration and deceleration. They’ll use the Bumba rig, a ramp animation, the Graph Editor, and onion skinning tools to better understand spacing and make their motion feel more natural and appealing.

In this lesson, students learn how anticipation prepares the audience for an upcoming action and helps motion feel more believable, weighted, and intentional. They’ll animate the Bumba rig descending a series of platforms while using anticipation, squash and stretch, arcs, and basic physics to create stronger animated movement.

In this lesson, students learn the difference between straight-ahead action and pose-to-pose animation, and when each method is most useful. They’ll practice using the Bumba Box rig to animate one box between key poses and another frame-by-frame so they can better understand how different techniques create different types of motion.

In this lesson, students learn how exaggeration can push animation beyond realism to make actions feel more entertaining, intense, and memorable. They’ll use the Puffer rig to animate an exaggerated blow-up and shrinking motion while experimenting with the animation principles they’ve learned so far.

In this lesson, students learn how timing affects the way an audience perceives motion, weight, force, and believability in animation. They’ll use the Bumba Box rig to animate two boxes pushing crates with different timing so one feels light and easy to move while the other feels heavier and more resistant.

In this lesson, students learn how appeal brings personality, creativity, and visual interest to animation once the core mechanics are working. They’ll animate a race between two Escargot rigs, using their own ideas to make the motion feel fun, surprising, and engaging.