Reply To: Does animation on twos or ones even matter in 3d animation?

[Wayne Dixon]

Hi Yehor,
As Dwayne mentioned – the frame rate can be independent of the ‘smoothness’

First let me explain what “Animating on 1s or 2s etc means”.

These are terms that come from traditional 2d animation.  100 years ago the frame rate for film was 24 fps (still is btw).  This was 24 images every second.
If you are “Animating on 1s” this means 1 drawing every frame (24 drawings per second)
If you are “Animating in 2s” this means 1 drawing every second frame (12 drawings per second and every drawing is shown for 2 frames.)
If you are “Animating on 3s”…..well you get the pattern yeah?  (each drawing held for 3 frames)

In computer animation you never really “change the frame rate to change the smoothness”. 

The Frame Rate is one of the first things that is locked and you animate accordingly.

The Frame Rate is set by the final destination of the media or the look you are going for.
When I animate for TV here in Australia it is 25 fps.
Animation for film is 24 fps,
games is generally 30 fps etc (but what about games that run at 60 fps……they are animated at 30 fps and the game engine reads the curve data at subframes to show the in betweens)

A higher frame rate doesn’t mean higher quality – it just means more images every second.  This could mean ‘smoother’ but only if it is animated accordingly.
What do I mean by that?
Imagine you’ve animated something “on 2s”.  That means you are holding the same image for 2 frames.  If you change the frame rate, you are just changing the amount of time the same image is shown – this will not make it smoother – nor should it.

Smoother doesn’t mean better either.
24 fps has a specific look and feel to it.  We have been watching this frame rate for 100 years and so we are very accustomed to seeing it.
Modern TVs often have ‘motion smoothing’ which can show more frames per second because it invents frames between the existing ones.
In my opinion this makes “Film” look like “Bad Television”  – because the motion is smoother it is changes the look and feel of the media.

What about converting video frame rate post production etc?
We always try to animate to the correct frame rate for the final destination – because changing the frame after a video is complete isn’t perfect.
The editing software has to repeat frames (or blend them together) when increasing or decreasing the frame rate.
This changes the spacing and timing of your animation.

Imagine a circle animating from screen left to screen right with even spacing.
Then change the frame rate of the video output from 24 to 30fps.  It will need to create 6 frames every second.  Most software does this by duplicating every 4th frame.

Now your nice even spacing isn’t even anymore – it holds and pops.

Hope that helps.