Ani: Basics

The Components of Animation

At the base level animation is made up of several components.

Keeping these in mind we can simplify complex animation tasks into manipulation of these components.
The basics of any art are an important tool to being creative without stress.

Frames

Animations are made of multiple drawings.
These drawings are displayed sequentially at a given rate.
Each drawing is called a frame.

FPS

FPS(frames per second) is the speed at which the animation is played.
FPS also affects several important properties of your animation.

Visual Flow

High FPS is faster and therefore connects more frames together visually.
More frames are shown in less time allowing you to "get away with" more motion and action.


The arm swing appears to be a fast motion downwards.The visual flow is so high that it is not obviously apparent that this animation contains a MultiFrame.

Low FPS is slower and therefore less frames are visually connected.

At this speed the MultiFrame visually jumps out, and isn't as effective at conveying a fast motion.

Ammount of Work
At high FPS the animation is burning thru your drawings.
More frames are shown in less time.
While we are able to understand what this animation involves, visually it doesn't make any sense.

This means that to make a coherent and time fitting animation you'll have to add more drawings. 

More drawings take more work, and work is expensive.

Low FPS conserves drawings by showing each one for a longer period of time.
Here is the EXACT same animation played at a slower speed.

While there isn't much visual flow, you'll notice that it feels "complete".
The motion can be followed and the actions and story make sense in terms of timing.
Low FPS takes less work.

Find a balanced FPS to fit your needs.

Delays

In GraphicsGale you won't be adjusting the FPS, you'll be adjusting the Delays per frame.
It's important to know that these can be thought of as the same thing, if all frames have the same number of Delays.

coming soon...

Space and Time

All animations take up Space and Time.

Space - the area that the animation moves within
Time - the duration of the animation.

It seems almost too simple right?
But there's plenty of reasons why this is important.

These two animations take up the same amount of Space but differ in Time.

Same amount of Time, but differ in Space.



more coming soon...

Motion

coming soon...

Change

Change is the amount of uniqueness among frames.

Zero Change

Here is an animation that suffers from not enough change:

Nothing happens!

All pixels remain the same.

This may seem like a trick example meant to be ironic.

But it's not.

This animation has frames and it takes up time and space. You can download just to make sure

It is still an animation.

No Change

Let's make this idea a bit more clear with examples.

This animation has motion, but no change:

Even tho the little guy moves, the drawings of each frame are the same.

Change is not necessary to create animation.
It is a component of animation that we control at our will.
We can balance the amount of change in different ways

All Frames Change
Here's the same animation with lots of change.
EVERY single frame is unique. 42 frames

This makes the animation very active.

It has an interesting look to it that can be used intentionally if desired.

Depending on how it is used, it can lack control and take lots of time to clean up.

Controlled Change
So let's try to balance the amount of change.

Less change allows us to keep the character more consistent easily.
Here we are using 4 unique frames across the time of the animation.

Because we are able to re use drawings this costs less to produce.

Full Image Change

This animation has an extreme amount of change.

Every pixel on the canvas changes from frame to frame.

No visual relationship between them can be easily made.

The amount of change is so great that we perceive it as a series of images, instead of an animation.

Change is an exciting additive to animation.
Control the amount of change in your animation to achieve the desired affect.
Later I'll talk about how change can influence the process of creation.

Action

coming soon...

What about the 12 Principles of Animation?

Often these are thought of as the most basic animation concepts.

Personally I think this is not the place to start.

Each principle is actually a simplification of MANY other complex ideas.

It is misleading to think of them as the baseline components that animation is made of.

It's a bit like saying "Drawings are made of Linear Perspective."

The 12 principles are an excellent collection of theories and tools that can be applied to increase the quality of an animation.

We'll come back to them later.
But go ahead and read about them here.