SBW - The art of Inbetweening: Timing Charts

inbetweening drawings is a common practice found in traditional animation but what exactly are in betweens and how do they work inbetweening is the process of adding more drawings in between your poses and breakdowns its main function is to make the animation move smoothly and to add more visual information that may be subtle when playing while it does make the animation look like it has high production value it's also key to having engaging believable clear and good animation due to the nature of having to make more drawings to fill in gaps this is a laborious task but that's not to say you can't screw it up that being said there are many ways to in between your key drawings and there is a language that animators speak to each other with in hand-drawn animation you'll notice a little ruler or grid somewhere in the animators drawings these are called timing charts you'll notice that every animator has a different style when making these but they all work similarly to each other when an animator finishes up his keys and breakdowns he or she hands him off to an assistant or an in-betweener who fills in the gaps the person tasked with in-betweening the drawings uses this chart as instructions given by the animator the timing chart has information on how many drawings are needed to fill the in between how far each drawing should be spaced from each other is there favouring does the motion slow in or slow out the chart is an essential guide especially to those who don't animate digitally and have to plan their movements before they even get to see how they play on the computer and also it is very essential to learn in-betweening by using charts let's talk about the basic anatomy of a timing chart since every animator has a different approach to a timing chart I want to show you guys on how I make a timing chart and how you can familiarize yourself with similar aspects usually you read it from top to bottom this is the order of how it'll move in the timeline since we aren't using any frames I'm just going to use letters a and B to represent my frames some animators have a different preference and change the order but it's common to read it from top to bottom I'm going to add a drawing in between a and B this drawing is called see when animators circle a drawing or frame number they are saying that this frame is a key drawing a key drawing in the most basic sense is where the drawings are at its most extreme some animators also make keys based on contrast change or a different sense of story or direction they also call them story keys I'm going to make drawing be a key as well some animators double underline their frame to make them keys but we're just going to use circles since circles are easier to read a single underline means you are turning a drawing or frame into a breakdown to me a breakdown is another extreme that connects the key drawings together it's technically not an in-between but depending on the context it can act as one when you see two curvy lines connect like this with the middle meeting at our break down here this indicating that C is an even half of a and B these two specific curves means that it isn't even half there for frame C must have its lines evenly spaced from a and B I'm going to add another drawing in between and C now by applying these two curves this means that D is evenly spaced between a and C my question to you guys now is can you make drawing D before having finished a or C the answer is no since D is evenly spaced in between a and C we need to have done those drawings first because they have the information we need to make drawing D is going to apply the same thing at the lower half now this chart is saying that animation is all evenly spaced even numbers even curves and each of them are evenly spaced side-by-side this says that the animation is going to move at an even constant motion now if we did this there's more drawing information at the top part notice how the spacing between the frames get gradually bigger from top to bottom this is called a slow out and it means that the animation will start as slow and gradually gain speed if we did this to the other end we get a chart called a slow in it acts as the opposite meaning the animation will start as fast but gradually become slower aside from half curves there are curves called thirds it has three meeting points this type of curve means that C is not going to be evenly spaced between a and B and will actually favor one keyframe you'll notice how one point of the curve meets at C and the other doesn't have a frame it's imaginative this is just emphasizing that C is favoring a over B since C is closer to a it's spacing will be much smaller leaning towards a or you can make C favor B I only usually use Sert's when I'm animating long and slow scenes or when the context is really specific speaking of specificness let's talk about the last example favoring while it does not have any curves it's clear that C is pretty much almost similar to drawing a notice an example how C is basically almost the same thing as a but has a very small influence of being it B is the Deadhead down there that's just me exaggerating favoring I usually use these for very short bits or things that play fast it gives a snappy energy in the animation Congrats now you understand the basic anatomy of a timing chart your graduation reward will be using frame numbers this time B now that's what I call an animation timing chart let's talk about the common timing charts there are two recognized halves have slow in have slow out all evens and halves thirds and favoring I added a little red dot to skim through each frame notice how the spacing of how the red dot moves is reflected on these charts this is symbolic reference to how the animation will move and how it'll be in between let's see some character examples the character I'll be using is B which was contributed by my friend and former classmate 10 dang he's a pink and yellow striped B with a happy-go-lucky attitude his friendly look is supported by his overall round and bubbly design I've provided a link to tan nags online blog go follow his work also a streaming workshop is open to using artists submitted characters to be animated for the streaming workshop more on that later though anyways back to the topic so I drew three poses on the B the start its breakdown and its end I'm going to use these same drawings for these following examples I animated and in between the be demonstrating the first type of chart erm the list a slow in and even halves notice how it starts off as very fast and end at the last key with a decreasing speed I achieved this effect by having a lot of drawings in between our breakdown and our last key with no in-between between our first and last this chart is used best for things slowing down after an abrupt movement it's great for action slowing down to a full stop and great for having a final impact on the take where the last key makes the most impression now to our second chart a slow out still an even house it's now in the opposite it starts out of slow and skyrockets as it gets closer to the last key with no in-between for more break down to our last key we now have more of the in-between drawings in the beginning half this gives the feeling that the motion is gaining speed it's starting to accelerate I usually use charts like this when the character is taking an air or when the character is starting to fall after our jump in this example it's as if the B is realizing something and he's quite happy about it our third example is a constant motion and all evens everything is spaced equally including the spacing of our three initial drawings there then would be a drawing in between the frames and that would then create a division of more evenly spaced drawings I also displayed the chart itself so you can see how everything is evenly spaced from one drawing to the next unlike the previous two where the spacing either shrinks or gross this timing chart is used for things that has constant motion meaning things like running walking swimming sometimes dancing or maybe tees for specific transitions no drawing here is really making an impression since again everything is moving at a constant rate our final example is basically a combination on how you can combine two timing charts into one for this case I used to slow out and slow in it starts slow gain speed goes fast and then slows down one could argue that these types of movements are the most natural since it shows subject gaining speed and then finally slowing down to arrest this type of stuff is great for takes emotional responses post a to pose be movements settling in and settling out when you think about combining or implementing charts the more options you open up yourself to now here marks the importance of using a timing chart same drawings same keys same breakdowns most importantly same length of running time however they all feel different from each other because they all have different timing charts the timing charts affected the way they are in between it's because of this they all give out a different effect from each other what effect do you get out of each of them now we move on to our remaining charts and to demonstrate them we will be using another character the character Jake was also contributed by tan dang Jake is a sci-fi themed cowboy with his design looking like it belongs to an action-adventure TV show Jake's designed to me feels very 80s from his fashion sense to having a style that sort of reminds me of Akira Toriyama's earlier works in Dragonball with a bit of Saturday morning cartoon feel to it it looks like a fun character to animate here's something I animated mostly in threes and with a bit of two's for quick bits I chose to have longer holds for each drawing so that's easier to actually see the thirds and use look at the chart and compared to the animation this is a classic slow in and slow out movement but notice how much more tight the drawings are closer to each other when he reaches down for his gun there's a lot more favouring to the previous frame and when he aims it he's pretty much already in his aiming pose but adjusting to it slowly for this case thirds are great because it can make things snappy and give the drawings a longer and lasting impression now for the last example I had to animate something new because something like a favoring requires a specific context in this shot the cowboy fires his gun and then recoils notice how there's a very short read on the gunfire but when he whips the gun upwards fast there's just so much more wait why the favor comes into play with the moment he fires a gun it's basically almost the same exact pose as the first drawing except with a gunshot due to the context for things like favouring you really do need to think about the context of the shot or what key want to have an impression of even though it'll play by really fast audiences will be able to feel the subtle feeling of the drawing they won't see it but again they will feel it that's the power that in-betweens have in animation anyways this concludes the introduction to in-betweening I talked about timing charts how to read them several types of timing charts to recognize and how they are used for in-betweening in the future I'll talk about in-betweening techniques and devices to use do's and dont's and sometime I'll probably do a full demo thanks for checking out the string bang workshop there always be more to come you

Channel: Toniko Pantoja

Views: 294,294

Keywords: Stringbing Workshop, SWB, tutorial, animation, in betweening, rough, hand drawn, 2d, pencil, traditional, timing chart, chart, timing, character, drawing, inbetween, toniko pantoja, advice, tips, adobe photoshop, flash, after effects, premiere, breakdown, keys, frames, extremes, short, cartoon, film, education, educational, guide, reference, desk, all evens, halves, slow in, slow out, thirds, favor, favoring

Id: 86tqKH3zxuM

Length: 13min 3sec (783 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 11 2016