From the course: 21 Foundations of Animation

How keys and breakdowns differ

From the course: 21 Foundations of Animation

Start my 1-month free trial

How keys and breakdowns differ

“

- [Instructor] I've done an entire course in the library on this topic. It's called Animating in 2D: Breakdowns and Thumbnails. If you want to go into more detail on this topic, that course is there. Key frames determine the position, the pose, and the timing of the scene. In this case, number one with the circle around it is the first key. Our figure is looking screen left. The second key is on frame 15, again with the circle around it. So about two thirds of a second to do this very simple head turn. Let's take a look at number seven, the breakdown. One thing we're often told to do on a head turn is to dip the head slightly and close the eye. So we do a little eye blink in the middle of a turn. In this case we have a very simple breakdown. You notice it's not monotonously in the middle. There is a slight little tilt. That's fine, that's a really good simple basic way of doing it. Now let's see what this looks like. Very nice. So it's a simple inoffensive head turn. It does what it's meant to do. It's not wrong. Now what I'm going to do is have some fun. Let's do a different approach with the breakdown. On our second version, again, we have the identical frame one, the identical frame 15. Now look at the breakdown. This one is definitely not half way between the two keys. It's doing something very different. We've really brought this scene to life now. And that's just two keys and one breakdown. The three, five, nine, 11, and 13 are just in-betweens. They are halfway, and halfway, and halfway between the breakdown and the keys. So they ease in and ease out respectively. A third version. This time the same start pose, the same end pose, and another different breakdown and as you can see, a different turn results. So we have amazing power over a scene by modifying our breakdown frames. So the keys control the poses, the keys control the timing, but the breakdown would be primarily used to loosen up the animation, or to strengthen the animation, or to take a very prosaic animation and suddenly add a whole new layer of life, and vitality, and interest to it.

Contents