Keyframing

The storyboard ends up being my road map for key-frames. Key frames ensure that the motion of your characters goes to the right place at the right time. A key frame artist has to be able to think in 3D so that the character or object in the scene will behave properly when it moves around. The cells may be 2D but in most animation we are still viewing a simplified view of a 3D world. If a character throws a punch towards the camera, the key frame artist has to know how to pull this off. She has to think in 3D. Key frames are higher quality versions of the storyboards. The animation techniques that follow are described in more detail in "The Animators Workbook" by Tony White. I usually do two levels of key frames. A sketchy looking version and a nicer traced version with clean pencil lines. The sketchy version can be drawn quickly so that you can view a pencil test to see if the scene is even working out like you imagined it to. You need to number your key frames at the corner (doesn't matter but be consistent) with a number that generally matches what frame it would be on film. If I am doing a two second shot and I want to shoot at 15 frames per second then my first key frame is numbered 1 and my last key frame is numbered 30. I scan in my key frames on a cheap scanner. You don't need super high quality with animation. I bring the scanned key frames into Adobe Premier. Premier lets me immediately view the animation as long as I number the files in ascending order (remember to add a zero before frame numbers below 10, otherwise the computer messes it up). It's that easy. I watch the frames over and over taking note of anything that bothers me about it. Now trace each of the key frames with a sharp pencil using single strokes. Scan and view again. Now you can do what is known as "tweening".