Do well-placed keys automatically equal good fcurves?

[ronny]

people who use stepped keys are approaching the medium as if it were 2D animation and that's totally cool, but just turning those keys to spline will pretty much never give you exactly what you want, unless you've keyed on basically every frame.

*Don't setting keys every few frames CREATE the curves you're after?

yes, but you'll probably find that you could have created those same curves with fewer keys and some tangent adjustments. moreover, your curves would be much cleaner this way, and cleaner curves usually ends up being better polished animation. this is not to say you should never key on every frame. there are many instances where you should key on every frame, but it would usually be on select body parts rather than the entire character.

[Mooncalf]

Thanks for the reply, Ronny.

So you're saying that the goal, in essense, should be to have as few keys as possible and to get the curves to do the animation for you. To learn to set keys strategically for the easiest/most effective adjustment of the curves?

Every time I think I have a concept down, forty-seven new subtlties tell me I haven't begun to learn yet. :)


- M

[posetopose]

I think in the end, it just needs to look good.

Whether you achieve that effect by using a few extra keys, of using the bare minimum and weighing your tangents...

...it just needs to look good.

There are times when weighted tangents will totally do the trick, but there are points when you need something to hit a certain beat and only an extra key will do.

Greg

[adavies]

Hi Mooncalf, I'd agree with Ronny. I never evr start with stepped curves, I found it took too long, I just block everything out in spline keys now, I know what the aniamtion is going to look like as I have already planned it out and worked out the timing in my head so going to step has very little benefit. By going straight to spline, I make sure that I am watching the curves as I work too.

Usually, I just block out some main poses in the scene and then just work straight ahead over the top so the main poses that I set become targets that I have to aim for you see. A lot quicker than keying all those inbetween poses! Half the time you won't need to key a lot of things in the body to get them to do what you want to do and you end up with way less keyframes which makes the curves smoother. the more keys you have, the jerkier your animation would be - I rarely have keys less than 3 frames apart - only in certain exceptions.

hope this helps!

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