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Coffee Break - Understanding the Graph Editor
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So far we commit animations with intervals - what I mean is all the inbetweens among breakdowns and gold poses. There are many ways to do this. You can simply do frame by frame, or can think of your main poses with the help of Graph Editor.
Using a graph, you can understand if your animation is accelerating or decelerating, if you have holds and other problems solvable by GE.
"Are you telling me that not only need to know to animate, but also need to read graphs??"
This is not something to be afraid. The tool is here to help, not hinder. When you have too many keyframes, your timeline will appear to be bleeding, and you can easily get lost in what you are doing or where you need to fix. Besides, sometimes you want your animation do something like go ahead or nice arcs.
"Okay. You are convincing me. Tell me exactly what it is that Graph Editor do"
Basically, the graph is a Inbetweener. But he sucks! That's why we say that the computer doesn't the work for you. And that is why the Graph Editor is malleable: fix by yourself and do what you want.
Let's talk about the tangent types and how it's looks like. Firstly you have something in the Y-axis represents the value (can be height, distance, amount of squash & stretch, etc) and the frame on the X-axis.
Using a graph, you can understand if your animation is accelerating or decelerating, if you have holds and other problems solvable by GE.
"Are you telling me that not only need to know to animate, but also need to read graphs??"
This is not something to be afraid. The tool is here to help, not hinder. When you have too many keyframes, your timeline will appear to be bleeding, and you can easily get lost in what you are doing or where you need to fix. Besides, sometimes you want your animation do something like go ahead or nice arcs.
"Okay. You are convincing me. Tell me exactly what it is that Graph Editor do"
Basically, the graph is a Inbetweener. But he sucks! That's why we say that the computer doesn't the work for you. And that is why the Graph Editor is malleable: fix by yourself and do what you want.
Let's talk about the tangent types and how it's looks like. Firstly you have something in the Y-axis represents the value (can be height, distance, amount of squash & stretch, etc) and the frame on the X-axis.
The first type is the STEPPED mode. The Graph Editor will not interval for you. Will display only the frames you did with holds lasting until the next keyframe. It's used to see if your timming is working. Normally is the first stage in a 3d animation. It will looks similar with this:
Your poses are working well with your timming? Great! Let's see this in LINEAR mode. Here you will see everything at a constant speed. It's used currently of blocking for you be able to see if everything is okay before leaving for next step.
After that you finally can put straight easies in and out from the graph with FLAT tangents. "Yes, we can!"
Having this basic knowledge, you begin to realize that you not only organizes the way that your animation is going, but also can add anticipations, overshooting, easies long or short... everything!
Also a clean graph editor will give for you much more fluid animation, so it's good to get use. Don't let the computer do the work for you!
Also a clean graph editor will give for you much more fluid animation, so it's good to get use. Don't let the computer do the work for you!
