aligorith.blogspot.

ca

FAQ - When should I insert keyframes?

b y A LI GORI TH NOV . 1 9 , 2 0 1 2
S u b t i t l e: A n d w h a t c a n Bl en der do t o h el p m e w i t h t h i s? (This was originally written as a response to a question on BlenderArtists)

There are basically two schools of thought about how/when to key fram e... With the older technique (som etim es referred to as "lay ering"), y ou only key fram e the controllers y ou are anim ating at a particular point in tim e and only when key fram es are needed. For exam ple, y ou start at the root/COG and insert key fram es there on fram es 1 , 1 1 , 2 1 , then m ov e up the spine and insert key fram es on 5, 1 6 , and so on. The newer/standard technique these day s (which is taught at places such as Anim ation Mentor) is a pose-to-pose approach, where y ou consider each pose in its entirety as a single drawing. That is, y ou firstly go through creating a set of key story telling poses (blocking pass), where y ou key fram e ev ery control on ev ery key pose. Then, y ou perform a few m ore passes ov er this adjusting those poses and/or inserting extra key fram es (again on all controls) to flesh out the pose transitions, before finally polishing ev ery thing on a controlby -control basis.

This second approach is m uch better for env ironm ents where y ou need to show work to a director for approv al: directors can get a better idea of where y ou're taking the shot, and y ou can retim e different parts easier (i.e. sim ply shuffle all the key fram es on a fram e left or right). Also, the benefit of key fram ing all controls at once is that y ou av oid any unwanted surprises should y ou change the tim ings on som e controls as y ou'v e captured the entire pose on each fram e. The downsides are that: 1 ) y ou hav e m ore key fram es to sift through when starting polishing; 2 ) changing the pose on a "static" body part m eans y ou now need to propagate the changed pose to adjacent key fram es; 3 ) if not done right, y ou can end up with clearly robotic "swing and hold" anim ation, where y ou character is clearly just hitting a num ber of predefined poses one after the other. Bl en der su ppor t s b ot h of t h ese w or k fl ow s A few y ears ago when I started coding Blender, the design was orientated towards the lay ered workflow. At the tim e, that was m y understanding of how anim ation is done (and how I'd been doing it), where y ou only wanted to m inim ise the num ber of key fram es y ou inserted. In particular, this lead to the "Only Needed" key fram ing option being added that is, to help y ou optim ise when key fram es should/needed to be added. Howev er, as I learned m ore about anim ation, professional anim ators started teaching online m ore, and anim ators gained m ore experience working with these toolsets, it becam e clear that ov erall, there is a shift towards the pose to pose sty le. So, during the Anim ato project, Blender's anim ation sy stem was redesigned to optim ise m ore for a pose to pose, "just anim ate" workflow. For exam ple, the "Sum m ary " channel in the DopeSheet m akes it easy to see where what fram es the key poses are on, and to retim e these.

The "Whole Character" Key ing Set inserts key fram es for all controllers on a character rig, and can be chosen from the Insert Key fram e (IKEY) m enu, just like for Loc/Rot/Scale key fram es (as a bit of triv ia, I coded it in a few hours while waiting for a tradesm an to finish lay ing new flooring in the bathroom while our house was being renov ated 2 y ears ago). Key ing Sets were dev eloped to allow y ou to choose a bunch of related properties (potentially across different objects) to insert key fram es for at the sam e tim e.

During Google Sum m er of Code 2 01 1 , the Graph Editor was refined to serv e its com m on/core role as the tool where anim ation curv es are "polished" during the final pass ov er a shot. In particular, the filtering defaults and presentation options were tweaked to m ake it easier to focus on a single curv e at a tim e and be able to carefully adjust it. Meanwhile, the DopeSheet took on a greater role for giv ing an ov erv iew of the key fram es/tim ing of all com ponents while blocking out shots. The NLA sy stem changed from being a "hack and slash" block recom binator (with all the associated scaling, sy nchronisation, and ugly transition y uckiness) to a non-destructiv e "anim ation lay ers" refinem ent pass workflow. (Granted, it does still hav e a few bugs

which prev ent this pipe dream from working com pletely , but the general workflow and fram ework are there!)

Finally , to av oid the problem s with changing the pose for som e "static" controllers after y ou'v e already inserted a bunch of key fram es with the old pose (as m entioned abov e), the "Propagate Pose" tool was dev eloped to giv e y ou a helping hand.

Hopefully this post helped clarify som e of these issues.

Or ig in a l URL:

http://aligorith.blogspot.ca/201 2/1 1 /faq-when-should-i-insert-key frames.html