Hey guys! I've been having a problem that I hope can be resolved by sharing it with you all. I am having trouble with inbetweening my work. I am working on a 2d animation to March's 10 second club sound file and I am using a dope sheet. The dope sheet helps alot since it tells me how many frames I have before each sound and as a result how many frames I have to do such and such action. I run into trouble when I want to animate something without dialogue. If I make a dope sheet I dont know how long it should take for each action to happen. I don't know how many inbetweens to put between the keys, and as a result my work ends up going at this same boring pace.
My question is how do you guys figure out how many inbetweens each key should get? :confused:
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
Why not time out the main poses that you're doing for keys and use that as the definite variable? You could go as far as a stopwatch but even if you sketch out the main drawings, stick 'em in a timeline, and shift 'em around to where they should be relatively it would give you a good idea. Like an animatic. Just editing timing so there are foundation to build on. If the drawings that tell the story are in place and unmoving, and are based on real-live timing, and you're at a fixed frame rate, you remove the need to decide how many inbetweens you need. All you decide from there is the timing/spacing of how quickly and in what way the main action and the secondaries move. Think about old standbys like a baseball pitch. That gives you room to mentally explore being slow, building speed, and being quick all at once... Am I understanding the question correctly?
Could you explain that some more Scattered? I think I kinda get what your saying but I still have questions. Perhaps If I used an example it would make my question clearer. Lets say I want my character to sigh. I have a down key an up key and another down key. I don't know how many inbetweens should be between the first down and the up and between the up and the second down. I've animated the sigh last Friday amoung other things. Here's a link to what I have so far: http://studentpages.scad.edu/~jcofer20/Marchpenciltest.avi
For the sigh I have a three inbetweens for the body motion from the first down key to the up key and I have seven inbetweens (including the three body inbetweens) for the ear motion. I just guessed how many inbetweens each part should have. My question is, is there a way to tell how many inbetweens there should be rather than simply adding or removing drawings if the motion doesn't look right? I know that the speed of the action and the force of the action will be an important factor in determining how many inbetweens there should be.
Another example can be found with one of Larry's drawings. http://forums.awn.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=905
Larry drew a small timeline to go with his image. My question is how would you figure out how many inbetweens you'd put on the timeline for that action.
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
Well, aside from Scattered's stopwatch idea, you'll have to really shoot it and add or remove drawings. After awhile, when you know instinctively how long something like 3 frames takes, then it will be a faster process. Until then, keep experimenting :)
Mew, you really need to act it out and feel it. That'll give you a better idea of what the timing is, at least in terms of what should be longer and what should be shorter.
I know you're just in the test stage, but don't forget about moving holds and slow ins and outs. The top of the inhale would be a great place for a moving hold. I couldn't tell from scrubbing your avi, but when it's playing at speed I don't really see any slow ins or outs, especially at the end of the inhale and the end of the sigh. Nice poses though!
Hello MM,
Great suggestions...
Timing huh, after you do your keys make up a timing chart with your approximate guess- on whether you slo-in or slo-out.
No matter what you do - you give it a try- the charts...(see my lessons for more info).
Let's assume you are shooting on twos (each drawing shot two frames):
If in you timing chart you have a key drawing at #1 and a key at say #9. We will use the frame count for our numbers- 1,3,5,7,9... Then what you do is shoot two frames for the key (#1) and two frames for each inbetween (3,5,7 drawings) times two frames each - so #1 is shot for 8 frames (or 8x's in animation lingo).
Say there are 2 drawing between key #9 and #15-...so you shoot #9 for 6x's (9,11,13)...Get it!
If you don't want to do charts then shoot every key drawing for 6 or 8 frames and adjust the timing from there- with flipbook you can insert or delete frames.
There you go.
Larry
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Thanks a bunch DSB and Larry! I'll act out the scene and try to get a sense of it's timing. Larry, I'll make a chart for all of my character's actions. I've tried your key capturing method (minus the chart) for the animation I just posted. It seems to work ok, I just wanted to know if there was a better way. Thank you both! :D
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
I'll second DSB's motion. Note in my wording I said "as far as" a stopwatch. Usually I know the space it's all supposed to fit into, and the timing between actions relative to each other is felt out. If I have 24 frames, and for the sake of simplicity am drawing on ones, and the action (whatever it is that can be done in a second) has three main parts, I'd do the first key to start (because it will either lead, or be close to the first frame), and then figure out at what points in that time the other two will come.
From there it's akin to what Larry said. I'm not sure what other methods exist, if any, but the only inconsistent timing I've ever done is the slows in or out, which gradually either halve or double timing/spacing for the action. For any action though you can either mentally scrub it, or do it yourself and it's pretty clear where there are huge movements through space and where there are highly condensed actions (like the virtual non-action of a moving hold).
I just gave Walt Stanchfield Notes a look the other day and the review gave some of my newer poses a good punch. Having those be stronger has actually helped me get a better inherent sense of timing. Go figure. It subtlely covers a lot of the physics and limits of movement that go into pose creation, so perhaps I'm implementing those in the back of my head when it comes time for them to move.
I have an inbetweening question. I know that in order to smooth out the motion the inbetweens need to be blurred, like having five or six images layed over each other.
From what I have seen, an inbetween has one of the images in sharper focus. I have also noticed that the sharper image is not alwas in the same spot.
So, how do i find how blurry the image needs to be and where the sharpest image should be placed?
Are you talking about 2d or 3d? Or maybe a motion graphics thing, like a logo moving? I have an answer for you, but I want to be sure it fits your question :)
Scattered is on the RIGHT TRACK, when it comes to taking your poses, and spacing them out. When you start a piece of 3D animation, you should not even be thinking about the timing at first. You should be getting solid posing for your action, on each frame (no inbetweens at all yet). Once you are happy with your poses, space them out on the time-line to fit your dialogue. That way, you know eactly how many frames you need for each action.
This is one of the few GREAT advantages to 3D... IMMEDIATE playback, and adjustability. Use it!
Making dope sheets is great, but unless you have a great deal of animation experience behind you, very unrealistic... It takes years to be able to visualize movements through counting frames and drawing simple curves on those frames on a dope sheet.
Cheers
"Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard" - Paul Simon
Oops sorry, I am talking about 2d.
Oops... Hehehehe.
Okay, so here is what you do... Take the same approach I described for 3D and apply it to 2D. Do all your poses, and place them on your dope sheet (which should have your dialogue breakdown on it) in the appropriate lines. Then think about how long you would like to make some holds. One very common thing that people do which drives me batty is that they keep their animation moving all the time, and it looks bad, especially if you are new to animating. It is best for a student to work from pose to pose, using levels as necessary to get the acting in. It will be a trial and error thing for you in the early stages, and youw ill probably rely on a line tester a lot. With time though, you will be able to know how many frames each action should be to get from pose to pose (antic, movements and settling action).
Good luck. I don't knwo if this answers you at all, but hopefully you will get something out of it.
Cheers
"Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard" - Paul Simon
It is not the number of frames but the image on the inbetweens I am trying to figure out. Using the bouncing ball, I could draw a circle and just move it along a path and that would look ok. If I take the image and blurred it the motion would look better.
I am not sure how to load up pics, I think that would make my question clearer.