Animation
From Anipedia
There are 2 big kinds of animation. The first kind would be Frame by Frame animation, where the animator redraws every single picture to make a fluid and flexible animation. The second kind would be the tweening, tweening is the 'lazy' kind of animating. You basically draw an object and move it around the screen. It's really simple but can be used to make great effects.
Contents |
[edit] Frame by Frame
The frame by frame is the most popular and nicest looking animation technique, when pulled off right. It takes a lot of time but the time put into it mostly pays off, with great results. A lot of people prefer watching Frame by Frame (FBF) movies over tweened movies. Frame by frame is used by almost all of the 2D animated TV shows, too. When using frame by frame animation, you are able to add way more things to your animation. You can change the perspective as much as you want, which you can not with the tweening.
[edit] Keyframes
The most important thing when doing FBF animation are the keyframes. The keyframes are the kind of like leading frames, the ones where the most movement takes place. For example, when you create a walking cycle, the first keyframe would be The contact of both feet with the ground, and the head being in the middle of the highest and lowest position of the whole walking cycle. The second keyframe would be the down pose, still both feet have contact to the ground but this time the head is way up down just as the whole body. The third keyframe would be the frame between highest and lowest position again, but this time a little higher than the first keyframe. This is called the pass position, cause that's the frame where he passes his front leg with his other leg. The 4th keyframe would be the up position, the position where he is on the highest spot, standing on his toes with one feet, the other feet in the air. Last frame would be the first frame again, just with arms and legs changed.
Here's a little picture of what I mean. I highlighted the front arm/leg.
If you read the Animators Survival Kit, you might know this already.
[edit] Inbetweens
This is most probably the most annoying part of the FBF. You have to draw all of the frames between the keyframes and that possibly smooth. That means, possibly a lot of inbetweens. There's not really a lot to talk about here because it's very simple. A lot of casual animators don't shade them because it just takes way too long.
[edit] Tweening
While tweening may be looked down upon as the easy way out of animating something, it is a useful, time saving automated process in Flash, and looks good when done correctly. Essentially, the user defines two extremes, or two key positions, and the computer will interpolate the positions in between. Flash also has a built in easing function (adjustable from -100 to 100), so it can ease in and ease out the positions, allowing for either a slow start or a slow finish.
There are two types of tweening build into Flash, both motion tweening and shape tweening. Motion tweening will interpolate two user defined positions, while shape tweening will interpolate two user defined forms.
Tweening can also be used for character models within Adobe Flash for cutout animation. By breaking the character down into different appendages and joints (Top arm, Bottom arm, Hand) one can motion tween these and move these around these to create movement. The parts can also be resized to add foreshortening. When doing cutout animation, be sure to have enough joints within the character, otherwise the action will seem stiff and ungainly.
In addition to this tweens can also be combined with frame by frame to combine the clean effect with the fluidity and "magic" of frame by frame. Say making the head tweened and not animated every frame but the body fbf or the entire body and head tweened but things like hair are animated to create a lifelike effect.
