Timing and spacing are two of the Twelve Principles of animation, and although they're separate principles, we will be talking about them together today, since they cooperate in making your animations more interesting and adding life to your characters.
Timing vs. Spacing
Timing and spacing can sound very similar initially, especially since they benefit your animation in similar ways. Both help you to make your animations more interesting by adding variety. They are also key in bringing your character to life and showing weight and motion. They even affect the way your characters' emotions read.
Despite all these similarities however, timing and spacing are actually completely different concepts. The difference is that timing is the amount of time it takes to get from one position to another (ex: 1 sec or 24 frames). Spacing is how the object gets from the one position to the next. For example, you could have even spacing where the amount of distance the object travels is the same on each frame from 1 to 24. Or, more often, the object will ease out of the first position and/or ease into the second position. In the case of an ease out, the amount of distance that the objects moves in the first several frames would be much smaller, and then increase gradually as it accelerates into the second position. So as you can see from the image below, you can change your spacing without changing the timing.
This was a brief overview, but the video below will help to clarify further.
Utilizing Timing
Now that you know the difference between timing and spacing, we can talk about how they're used in an animation.
Timing allows you to add rhythm and texture to your animations, and you can do this in many ways, but it all comes down to variation. Similar to speech, an animation should have pauses, ups and downs, slow and fast parts, etc. This relates to the beats/accents of your scene, which should occur at varying timing. This keeps your animation interesting and also helps draw the audience's eye to the most important parts of your animation.
To do this, you can use the following ideas:
Asymmetry - Make the ups and downs of your motions move at different speeds. For example, if your character raises his arms and then lowers them, have the arms come up slowly and drop fast (or the opposite).
3 Speeds - Throughout your animation, use a variety of speeds. A good rule of thumb is to get a slow potion, a medium portion, and a fast portion. You can even take this a step further and layer more than one speed on top of each other, such as a slow yawn with some fast body vibrations.
Patterns - You can establish a pattern of similar or even timing, which you can break later with a variation in timing. This contrast will draw the audience's eye and can also add humor and character to your shot.
So far, we've talked about this concept in relation to whole poses and sections of your animation, but variation can also apply to separate body parts. Each part will have its own timing, and it's rare that they will all start and stop moving at the same time.
Utilizing Spacing
Your animations will usually use slow ins and outs, as we discussed above, with an ease in and out of each major pose. However, you can adjust the amount of ease in/out to make it greater or smaller, depending on the type of action. This will also add a little variety to your animation, just as timing does. Also keep in mind that in the case of spacing, it applies to specific body parts, such as the hips, wrists, and ankles.
Even though a combination of ease ins and outs are the norm in animation, this isn't the only way to have your spacing. Even linear spacing is still useful in cases such as the forward translation of the hips in a walk. You might also have an ease out of the first position followed by linear spacing into the next position. This is used for impacts, such as planting the feet in a walk, placing a hand on a wall, etc. This works well because the body doesn't anticipate impacts by slowing down it's movement. Instead, it will continue at it's current speed until the impact forces it to stop. These are just a few of the ways that your spacing can vary in an animation, but the best way to decide what spacing to use is to look at reference and go frame by frame to see exactly how the body moves. This way you can be sure that your character is moving correctly and it's a great way to learn.
One last pitfall you might run into with spacing is spacing hitches or pops. This is just a result of a sudden jump in spacing. For example, a character might be swinging their arm, and the wrist suddenly jumps a large distance over the course of one frame. To avoid this, decrease the spacing in this section, otherwise, when played back at full speed, your animation will look jumpy.
You can now use timing and spacing to get variety and interest in your animations. Taking it one step further, you can even show character and emotion by adjusting the speed that your character is moving and how they get from one place to another. If you're a beginner, I highly recommend trying out some timing and spacing on a bouncing ball and doing reference studies, taking note of how things move in real life. Good luck and happy animating!
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