The 12 Principles of Animation - Episode 9

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The Ninth Principle - Timing

This animation from 2020 was unfinished, but even then it had mad problems with timing

The principle of timing is about the editing of the number of frames to adjust the perceived speed of an animation. That is to say, timing an animation is all done with frames. You all know about framerates by now, so instead I will talk about animation methods regarding timing:  

ANIMATING ON ONES: method where you draw each and every frame of the second. Although this takes much longer, the animation will look suave as a smooth criminal as well as more detailed. 

ANIMATING ON TWOS: method where you draw every other frame of the second. This method not only saves time but also smoothens slower actions by lessening wobbly lines - which could be why this method is much more common.

Although twos is more common than ones, animators tend to switch between both methods depending on what they are animating - both methods have their advantages that can be harnessed in different contexts. The same goes for spacing of frames or the distance an object travels in between frames. Whether the spacing is linear or varied, quick actions usually need a greater distance between frames to look like the object has moved further in a shorter time, while slow actions sometimes barely need any spacing for the animation to take longer to travel the same distance. 

  

Being the most fundamental animation principle, successful use of timing can convey many things to the audience and enhance your animations because it:

1- makes animation realistic and smooth: the more frames an animation has, the smoother and more naturally it obviously flows - as long as the linework and proportions stay relatively consistent that is.  

2- decides how the animation progresses: Does the character turn to look over their shoulder quickly or slowly? In other words, the speed of the animation can tell the audience a lot about who the character is and what their personality is like. Your typical brooding and calculating villain might look over their shoulder slowly and make eye-contact only after their head has stopped, while a ball of energy -type of character likely goes quick about it. In this way, timing also:

3- conveys mood and nature of the action: For instance, a slower walk cycle looks relaxed, while one that resembles speed walking more can set the tone of the scene as rather anxious - maybe the character is scared someone is following them and is picking up their pace. The action isn't just walking, but now it's also fearful and like escaping or about to start running away.    

Challenges:

Now is time to dive into possible challenges you might face with timing and spacing in your animations. So before you get to animating, for best possible results, take your time to consider these:

Determining the appropriate timing 

- Because timing affects how the audience interprets the character and the mood of the scene, an animator must take into consideration the personality, mood and size of the character in animation. 

- A general rule of thumb is that excited or startled and small or slim characters move fast or make timing faster, while tired or sad and heavy or big characters slow down timing. That isn't to say that big characters couldn't be fast, they just tend to require more anticipation to build up the speed and momentum that light characters already have - such are the laws of reality and believable animation. As per usual, filming or looking up references are a huge help for determining the appropriate timing for actions. 

Understanding the purpose of timing and possible changes in it

- While possible changes in timing can make the animation more interesting, there are risks to it. Unintentionally wrong timing can not only make the animation unnatural or unrealistic, but also confuse the audience or make them feel the opposite of the intended way or misinterpret what they were watching. 

- As I already covered in the previous challenge, fast timing signals energy, hastiness, power, lightness and nimbleness while slow timing generally looks more peaceful, considered, careful, deliberate, heavy and sad. Understanding the effects of speed on animation has the power to take your animations to new heights! 

Spacing illustrated by Alan Becker. The more densely spaced and numbered the frames, the slower the animation whereas the further apart and less the frames, the faster the animation 

Practise exercises:

- Animate the same thing - first on ones, then twos: you can choose whatever you want, but try to first animate it on ones and then on twos. When your animations are finished, compare the differences in the results as well as your experiences animating each of them. Does one convey the action better than the other? Was one way easier or more fun to do than the other? 

- Change the number of frames: let's say that it's a hand pointing to left. Draw it first with two frames, then three, then four and each time you add new frames, analyse how the animation could be interpreted in different ways or used in different contexts

- "Wrong" timing: sometimes what would usually be considered the wrong timing, can be used to add comedy for example. Maybe a stoic character moves even slower when excited, or suddenly begins jumping out of joy. Perhaps a jolly character could act extremely hyper when sad for some reason.

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!