Uploaded July 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago

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How to animate cloth and tails being dragged behind? Create smooth and surprisingly real animation using drag, follow-through and overlap!

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This animation tutorial for beginners covers some of the most important principles of animation:

# Drag
Loose, attached parts tend to start moving with a delay and lag behind because of inertia.

This is clearly visible at the tip of dangling cloth or tails. They seem to briefly stay in place after the element they are attached to already started moving and they are being dragged behind pointing towards the direction they came from.

Drag is also an important part of body mechanics. Depending on the motion, body parts can be dragged behind by a rapid main action.

Elements that were dragged behind tend to overshoot into a follow through motion after the main action came to a stop.

# Follow Through
Loose, attached parts tend to continue moving after the leading element came to a stop.

When a leading element is slowing down, the dragged behind parts still have a lot of momentum and therefore keep going at a higher speed, which causes them to pass the main element.

# Overlap
Different elements of an object or body, come to a stop of different times.

This usually happens because an attached, looser element still has to continue a follow-through motion after the leading element already stopped moving.