The 12 Principles of Animation - Episode 6

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The Sixth Principle - Slow in & Slow Out

Because the lack of spacing of frames, everything moves at the same pace and my man looks like he's about to fall asleep on my blog (it's probably more common than I think), my first shit from 2017

As proven above, the principle of slow in and slow out has a huge impact on animation - both 2D and 3D animation. In 2D animation, the principle describes accelerating and decelerating - or slowing in and out of - parts of an action in hopes of making the animation feel realistic:

SLOW IN: slowing out of a pose.

SLOW OUT: slowing into the next pose.

If you were on the Introduction to Animation course, you might remember the terms ease in and ease out from the keyframe assistant in After Effects. These terms describe the same concept as slow in and slow out, but are more commonly used in 3D animation.

EASE IN: ease into a transition.

EASE OUT: ease out of the transition.

What is the use of slow in and slow out in animation?:

1- creates a sense of realism: discounting robots and constant movement, almost all action starts slowly and builds up speed (accelerate) and finishes slowly (decelerate). 

2- accentuates poses: if you play around with keyframe spacing, or how far the object moves in between frames, you can emphasize poses and parts of the action that are important or just glorious. The greater the distance between keyframes, the bigger the spacing and faster the action. In contrast, the less distance between key frames, the less spacing and the slower the action.  

3- smoothens the animation: a bunch of extra frames at the beginning and/or the end reduce stiffness in an action and can slow down the animation to make it run smoother.  

4- helps you work fast and fix choppy animation: by using slow in and slow out frames and carefully spacing your frames, you can greatly reduce the amount of work needed as well as choppiness of animation. Sounds awesome, right?   

Challenges:

Before you start animating, you should slow down and consider these challenges that can arise with implementing the principle of slow in and slow out into your animations:

Where to put slow in and/or slow out?

- With objects that move linearly, such as a flying ball or a robot, no slowing in or out is generally needed. Otherwise, it might look like an external force like a strong gust of wind or supernatural powers are giving it a push. 

- Spacing of frames dictates how something moves. Linear spacing, where the spacing between all frames is the exact same, is used for constant movement. If you were to animate a character like this, the character would likely look robotic or unnatural. That's why it's typically better to have variation in spacing when animating sentient subjects. Understand what you're animating for a more believable and lively animation! 

No right or wrong amount of slow in or slow out

- Much like anticipation, there isn't really a right or wrong amount of slowing in and out. But because almost all actions (at least of sentient beings) accelerate and decelerate, as long as it exists you'll be good.  

- The principle of slowing in and out is easy to experiment with, so you'll likely find the right balance through testing and feeling out what works for you. 

Typically slow in and slow out effect requires a bunch of extra frames right at the start of the movement as well as right before the end, as illustrated by Alan Becker

Practise exercises:

- Sentient ball rolling back and forth: because the ball is sentient, it controls its movement and needs to speed up and slow down at the beginning and end of its movements

- Ball being thrown vertically in air: when the ball leaves whatever is throwing it, the ball accelerates. The closer towards the peak of its arc it gets, the slower it becomes, until it accelerates yet again into its fall

- One-tween-pony: a pony turning around its head, or it could be anything really - as long as the motion is quick enough, you can manage with only one frame between the first and last frames. But for this to work smoother, you should also copy both ends and slightly skew the frames in the direction of the movement  

- Touching up old animations: if you have old animations that are choppy or too fast or too slow, you could try going back to those and see if a few slow in and slow out frames can improve them. This way it can be easier to understand the impact of slowing in and out, how it works and where it works as well 

I hope you enjoyed reading or even skimming through my blog. Feel absolutely free to comment more ideas or even share your own animations! I'd love to hear and see some of what you can come up with for practising this principle! And with that...

Thank you for reading and see you next post!