At an animation authoring component, an inputted movement of an object displayed in a graphical user interface is received. Further, at a physics animation rule engine, a physics generated movement of the object that results from a set of physics animation rules is applied to the inputted movement. In addition, at the graphical user interface, the inputted movement of the object is displayed in addition to the physics generated movement of the object. At the animation authoring component, the physics generated movement of the object in addition to the inputted movement of the object is recorded.