Claude Animation Skill

Animation Direction

A [Claude Code](https://claude.com/claude-code) skill for directing and building 3D animation in Blender with cinematographic rigor — product and hero shots, camera moves that actually hold the subject in frame, lens and forced-perspective math, F-curve timing, and the 12 principles applied to hard-surface objects rather than cartoon characters.

It is two things at once:

• A reference you read while animating — what focal length says what, how long a reveal arc should run, why your animation feels floaty, how forced perspective actually works.
• A Python library that builds the shot — anim_lib.py plus five ready recipes that run headless in Blender.

Every number in it comes from production practice and is documented in `references/`. Every formula is implemented in code and verified against a live Blender instance.

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What it knows

Area	Covers
Camera moves	11 moves — orbit, reveal arc, turntable, dolly-in, push-in, arc+push, crane, parallax slide, rack focus, whip pan, hero hold. Duration, degrees/second, easing profile, rig setup, and how each one fails.
Lens & framing	24–100 mm and what each communicates, aperture by shot type, composition values, screen-direction continuity, 10/15/20-second beat structures.
Forced perspective	The math: E = D/(D−δ) near-feature exaggeration, background compression, dolly zoom f₂ = f₁·D₂/D₁, FOV↔mm conversion, monumental-scale placement.
Motion principles	The 12 principles for rigid products, physics-based timing, free-fall frame tables, overshoot templates, follow-through delays, shutter angle and motion blur.
Blender craft	Interpolation and handle types, easing equations, blocking→spline workflow, floaty-animation diagnosis, Euler vs quaternion, motion paths.
bpy API	Exact API for keyframes, F-curves, camera rigs, constraints, drivers, NLA — plus the headless traps that make scripts silently do nothing.