ABSTRACT
If you can cast your mind back to your first ever physics lesson, you were probably told that the world is divided into three states of matter: solid, liquid and gas. At some point you are going to animate all three of these. Just to make life difficult there are also energy sources you’ll need to animate: electricity, fire and explosions. The animation of liquids, gases, electricity, fire and explosions are the preserve of the special effects animator and although I will touch on them in this book, they are not really in its remit. However, an understanding of the movement of solid inanimate objects is vital to the understanding of character animation and that’s primarily what this chapter is about.
