animating on 2’s

[Steve Roberts]

Ah. Good question.

I suppose it would mean that you’d make your keyframes and tweens (by hand, if we’re doing the cel thing) in a composition that is half your final frame rate. Then you’d go into the comp settings, to the advanced tab, and select “preserve frame rate when nested”. Then you’d nest this comp into a comp with the final frame rate and render.

For example, you’d animate in a 12 fps comp, preserve frame rate, then drag it into a 24 fps comp and render the 24 fps comp.

Does that make sense?

[Andy Burmeister]

I animated on 2’s before in AE.
each cel/image was 2 frames long and the comp frame rate was set to 24fps

it’s pretty much the same Steve suggested, am I right?

[Beatriz Hopkins]

This makes sense, thanks.

However I am not sure this is what the person meant. I went to do a test and the person next to me was setting keys on all the the odd frames.
I am used to set keys in the main poses and let the computer do the inbetweens.

[Steve Roberts]

Well … when you animate with a computer, you set your keys where they need to be, then you let the computer interpolate between the keys, creating the in-betweens automatically. So your keys may or may not be every other frame — they may be 20, 30 or 40 frames apart. It all depends on the speed of the action. Remember, the computer interpolates automatically, and you don’t have to create the in-betweens at specific intervals.

So it sounds like this person isn’t doing it right. I could be wrong.

In my answer, I assumed that you were a traditional animator who scanned drawings done on twos and wanted to convert them to video in AE, possibly adding effects. maybe. I don’t do much of that, admittedly.

So let’s start over. Why did you ask the question and what is your goal here?

[Beatriz Hopkins]

Thanks for taking the time to answer this question.

I am a computer animator mostly using Maya. And I set the keys for the main poses and anticipations etc and then I use the graph editor for the curves of all the keys.

I went to do a test in After Effects. The test was using a character created with cut-outs and saying something. So I had to do the lip-synch and some acting going along with the speech.

The only request was ON TWO’S.

I did a nice animation with exaggerations, anticipation, offset the hands, etc….When I showed it to the person in charge, he said it was nice but IT WAS NOT ON TWO’s!. He said to change the interpolation of the keys to HOLD. But when I did that the character was snapping from one key to the next.

I ended up changing all the interpolations of my original keys to linear, and then setting keys every other frame on the odd numbers and then setting HOLD interpolations.

I am still confused about the way they wanted me to do it in After Effects, since I am not that much experienced with that program.

Hopkins

[Steve Roberts]

Ah. I see. Sorry for the “animation 101”. 🙂 Hmm … I don’t know if “on twos” really applies, but I’d assume they want the look of 12 fps (assuming projection at 24). To get this, I still recommend you animate in a 12 fps comp, prserve frame rate then drag into a 24 fps comp and render.

Your keys do not have to be hold if you go that way. They only have to be hold if you are animating in a 24 fps comp, setting a key every other frame. That would create a lot of unnecessary work, given that you can animate naturally (with computer tweening)in a 12 fps comp, preserve frame rate, and so on.

Now if there’s some special sync-workflow issue at hand in your shop, I may be recommending the wrong thing.

Tell you what: if you can, do a quick side-by-side test of two methods: mine, and the other, where you’d key every other frame in a 24 fps comp. Show the boss that there’s no difference in look. It will sync up with someone else’s work on twos.

Let me know what you do, and how it turns out.

[Beatriz Hopkins]

Thanks again so much for replying.

I will make the two tests you mentioned for my own knowledge. This was a test I had to do to get hired at that particular company. The on two’s is the only problem I had but it probably eliminated me.

[Steve Roberts]

Ah. It was a test. Bugger. It might have been the kind of question that’s best answered by “I can do that if you want, but if you tell me why you want that, I might be able to offer a faster alternative that gives the same result.” Yeah, like anybody really talks like that … 🙂

They might have wanted to see if you could do your own tweening by hand. Maybe.

I hope you get another shot at it.

[Beatriz Hopkins]

Thaks a lot. You’ve been very helpful.
All the best,
Hopkins