Spacing and Timing?

[johncbeggs]

Sofar Ive been Animating, or so I thought :laughing:

I read something somewhere about spacing and timing where a ball that went in a straight line all the drawings equal space away from eachother!
- kinda boring and robotic-

but then I seen the ball ease out/more drawings in the beggining and ease in at the end! - more interesting and flowing-

So both take the same amount of time - with the same amount of drawings,the thing that got me interested was the fact that the first example was :eek: the way I was doing it!!!, We need to learn the proper way of SPACING AND TIMING!:D

would anyone care to elaborate on this? :D
and thankyou all for whoever replys!

[Alexandra Poston]

That sounds like the example I'd watched in the Richard William's DVD set. Also, I think that this was covered in Don Bluth's first how-to DVD. Drawings that are further apart will come off as faster, when drawings that are closer to each other appear slower. Also, once you've captured your test, it's fun to play around with the timing in varying up which frames should go on one's or two's. My professor's always telling me, ' vary the timing, or else your animation will come off as awkward, or boring. implement different speeds, think, ' slow, medium, and fast'. So, if you make a widely-spaced fast action, that's fast, and if you put that on one's, it'll be snappy too! and if something's really slow, the animation might only be pencil-widths apart -and that kind of subtle animation is golden!

[johncbeggs]

Thanks alexandra, but I know drawings that are further apart will come off as faster :laughing: - I was asking asking more about easing out and easing in!
when and how :D

Yess and thats where I read it, at the library its Richard Williams book! just forgot the name :D

[Alexandra Poston]

Slow ins and slow outs are the same basic principal then. You never move and then stop without slowing into it, unless you hit a wall. A slower, more passionate movement might have a longer smooth in/smooth out. Do you know about timing charts? They're also explained in the richard williams book - it helps you keep track of how many inbetweens you use to ease in and ease out of a keyframe. They look like this:

http://www.angryanimator.com/tut/pic/001_bouncingball/bal10.gif

[OwenWelsh]

Depending on our scene, one of the most useful little things I learned about spacing relates to the slow in slow out idea and on Don's Bouncing Ball DVD he refers to this as the 'pendulum effect.' Generally we get good results if we group most of my drawings near the extreme and then go fast through the transition / middle / passing position to the next pose. I think passing positions or the places in-between your extremes aren't nearly as interesting and wont help us create the stacatto beat we want. So we shouldn't waste time there. It may look strange to you that there are big spacial gaps between poses or drawings, but trust me in motion it will look crisp and snappy. I think this will make the idea of "beats" in our animation more readable. You only need a few frames going away from your extreme to the next pose that imply the transition to the next pose. Generally, it's best to get to the next extreme as soon as possible.

[Rodney]

One very practical aspect of Easing In and Easing Out is that it helps the human eye read the (extreme) pose that its moving into or out of. The longer an image remains in close proxity in relative space the easier it is for the brain to register the movement of the object within that space. If it speeds up too quickly we lose track of it in space. (So for some effects the Easing should occur more quickly!)

This relates also to anticipation but anticipation is generally moving in opposing directions. Going up before going down. Moving left before going right. Etc. Etc.

Perhaps most importantly, the end result of Easing In and Easing Out is that it helps our imaginary object gains a very real sense of weight.

Consider for instance how a bowling ball thrown by a small child might speed down a lane rather quickly due to its weight and the gravity behind the ball as it falls. Then it runs out of energy and slowly... ever so slowly... painfully slowly... comes to a halt. (Note: At this point you have to call the attendent to retrieve the ball by walking down the lane.)

Try the same exercise with a balloon floating up into the air.
At the moment of first release it zooms skyward quickly!
Then it eases back and floats with the breeze as an equilibrium is achieved between the inner and outer air.
If a strong wind catches it and sends it off in a new direction... there it goes Easing In and Out again.

When considering Ease (and Favoring) it may help to think of a force behind the weight.