For this 2D animation lesson, we focused on animation charts and how they are used to plan an action. First, we quickly went over the three types of keyframes, which are used quite a lot in charts: Keypose/Keyframe (K), Breakdowns (B) and In-Betweens (I). The letters for each of these are used to label the charts, which act as a guide for the frames, and help the animator as they are drawing.
After this, we watched a couple of videos of raw animation from Disney. It was really interesting to see the original sketchy style of the animations since we only see the final result. Being able to see the pencil lines made it so much more evident how much time is poured into animation because you can see each drawing and the illusion of movement still stands. I also remarked upon the notes, dialogue, and of course, animation charts that occasionally popped up in the frame, usually near a character. It was interesting to see how they helped shape the characters since the process would take longer without them, and probably wouldn’t be as clear.
– Demo –
In Animate, open up a Full HD canvas and set the frame rate to 24fps. Once the canvas fits the window, draw a big ‘I’, either horizontally or vertically. Label the first and last line ‘K’ since these are the main keyframes, then split the chart into two by adding a line in the centre and label that one ‘B’, as it is the breakdown pose. This is the basic animation chart that most animators start with. It can be made more complex by adding in more lines (halving each time) which are basically more frames. Depending on personal preference, you can also add jumps to show the different frames and how close they are to one another, which is a more visual way to see the speed of the animation. I didn’t do this since I felt it was an extra and would take too long to add each time I make a chart.
From this point onwards, it was very simple. The animation we were asked to create was a simple bouncing ball, but using the animation charts. My first attempt wasn’t great because I think I was a little confused with how the number of frames corresponded with the lines of the chart (in hindsight this was so simple) and because of that, my ball ended up bouncing too fast since I drew too little frames.
My second attempt, the one you see above, I did on the same canvas, because I was feeling a little annoyed with the first, and wanted to try again without erasing it. This time, I added slow-in and slow-out, which always seems to make the movement more natural, and I followed the lines on the chart frame by frame, which really helped. I figured it out! And the second bouncing ball turned out a lot smoother. Whilst drawing each frame, I also stretched the ball out a little more, keeping in mind the animation principle of exaggeration.
To challenge myself, I decided to try the next task, which was to create a bouncing ball with slow-in and slow-out, and that changed into a different shape at some point during the animation. I figured, why not go with something interesting instead of just a triangle or a square? So I decided on a heart. I knew this was going to be a bit difficult because of the mid-point where the ball changes shape, where I would have to draw a weird mix of a circle and a heart, but I went with what I thought would look right.
Once I played my animation through for the first time, I was quite disappointed, because it didn’t work at all. The heart kept jumping up and down and only moved correctly for a few seconds each time, before almost glitching. I realised that I had gotten mixed up because of the animation chart; the direction of the ball turning into a heart was on the bounce up, but I followed the animation chart downwards, and that’s why I got mixed up with some of the frames and drew a shape in the wrong direction (down instead of up). I had to go through and delete each frame that was wrong and redrew the shapes in the correct position. It didn’t take as long as I thought it would!
I also had to make the heart transform back into a ball at the top so that the animation would make sense when looped. I couldn’t use too many frames for this, however, or it would look like the heart was floating in the air for an unrealistic amount of time. I believe I used around five frames for this. The final steps were to loop the animation, change the background colour to something that would make the ball pop more and fill it in! Voila!
I am so much happier with this animation, and I think that it is much smoother and more interesting than the first. My only criticism is that it is still a little fast, but that is because of the limited time we had in the lesson. The important part was that I learned a very important method in 2d animation, which I think will help me immensely in the future. I’ve concluded that I like animation charts and that they are very useful in keeping the frames clear and organised, and when used correctly, like with the Gif above, they can improve the quality of an animation.