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Good timing matters a lot: it’s a great blend of tension and release, suspense and satisfaction. In jokes, music, memorable film moments and games, proper timing means everything, it defines whether a funny joke will stick the landing, a great music part or a suspenseful scene will hit you exactly as planned by the creator and so on.
Timing is also one of the 12 key principles of animation. These principles distinguish good animation that feels right even though you can’t put your finger on what exactly makes it superior. Following these principles is very important if you’re aiming to create a great final product.
As you can guess, we talk about timing in animation’s definition, the timing animation principle, its valuable nuances, define its basics and see how it helps to shape a great result that is being brought to life by animators and helps your characters and places feel real to the audience.
Timing is the duration of moments and their placement and spacing that affect the rhythm, pacing, emotions and clarity of the action. The amount of frames that a certain action in the animation takes is also considered timing. A proper timing in animation helps to make events feel organic, real and subtle, as if they’re happening not strictly directed by the hand of God, an animator, but by twists of real life-like logic.
Let’s take a look at some timing in animation’s examples that will paint the picture of its important role in animation works.
The way a character walks, pronounces words by moving their mouth or does anything at all is defined by timing. Back in the beginning of animation, it used to be way too fast or way too slow, and characters moved awkwardly. Nowadays, it’s much easier to control the timing and use it for your own advantage.
Realistically, you’d expect characters to move with a certain humane rhythm. If someone moves erratically, or way too, it feels wrong on an internal level, timing doesn’t work properly in this animation. Even in stylized animation, keeping the proper timing is crucial if you want to make something that feels nice and pleasant to watch and not just something that was made in a couple of hours as a joke. They will feel robotic, awkward and unnatural.
In addition, great timing serves as a great instrument of storytelling. If characters do something too slowly, it dramatically raises tension. If they do it quickly, it brings up the energy, allowing you to portray characters in a certain way. If their timing is all over the place, it may be a great indicator of their clumsiness and if they move with a determined rush, you can easily believe that this character is about to save the world.
Another interesting point to make while talking about timing and animation is that off-beat timing can be pretty great if you’re aiming for a comedic or eerie, dream-like effect. And of course don’t forget that timing allows you to portray your characters with emotions: just like in real life, slow or fast movements can be indicators of what happens in their hearts.
In-betweens is an animation terminology that means the frames that exist “in between” poses. Adding them leads to movements feeling smooth, and the lack of in-betweens creates a very blunt movement. Depending on your goals, you should use more or less frames like this.
If you increase the amount of frames, the action will be sped up. And vice versa, decreasing them leads to a slower speed. Omitting frames may be used to achieve desirable results. Usually, animation works at 24 frames per second.
Time charts let animators visualize the timing. Animators use them to distribute characters and objects’ poses and keyframes across the timeline of their work. They can also mark where each action starts, where it reaches its climax and ends, leading to convenient control over the timing.
If everything mentioned above seems way too tricky, you can always rely on the assistance of an art outsourcing studio.
Since 2016, RocketBrush Studio has been establishing itself as a trustworthy partner by working hard and assisting leading industry names with their projects. Among our clients are Supercell, Paradox Interactive, Applovin and other prominent developers.
Our tested workflow allows us to produce high-quality results for all sorts of services: 2D and 3D works, various types of genres, techniques and styles. from backgrounds and environments to game development and animation, both full-scale and providing assistance to what already exists.
You can read our testimonials here and check out our works in detail in our portfolio there. We’d love to help you out with your projects!
Timing is one of the 12 main animation principles and allows you to plan out the movements properly, to make the final result feel dynamic, organic and believable. If you’re planning to create a great animation work, it’s essential to keep it in mind and pay meticulous attention to timing while you work on bringing your characters to life with animation.
Even though it’s only an imitation of real life, a talented animator can do something even better: not imitate and recreate life, but create a world that is different from our own, yet feels like a new one, yet to be discovered and explored.
