So obviously we couldn't have animation without time. We need time for animation to work. So this principle about timing  that we're learning about has much more to do with  specific choices around timing of your animation. For example, earlier we learned about slowing and slow out. That has to do with timing. So you've already kind of learned about how important it is  to time out animations like that,  it indicates something moving slow or fast.

It indicates whether or not there needs to be more frames  or less frames for an action to take place  in terms of character. It could mean the character is slow or fast, weak  or strong, old or young. It can display  and convey a lot of information just in  how we tweak and change timing. Are they tired? Are they energetic? There's so much going on with timing that can change the,  the feeling of your animation.

It's really important to understand this concept  with incorrect timing. Your audience might not even be able  to see what's happening,  but with correct timing, not only can they see it,  but they feel the energy that you want them to feel  or the lack thereof,  whether it's something moving fast or slow. And timing also refers  to something we discussed in the science  of animation class when we learned about frame rates. So essentially if we're doing 2D animation  and we're animating on twos,  but if we're doing a fast motion, holding a frame  for two frames might make it feel too slow. So we might also need to make the timing decision  to animate on ones for a portion of that animation. So it's those types of decisions  and choices that need to be made to make sure  that the animation is playing  in the way that you want it to.

With 2D animation, they have a special way to describe  timing and that's through the use of timing charts. Timing charts are a way to show  how many frames are gonna occur between the key poses  or the key drawings or the golden poses  or the extremes that kind of pose  to pose language we discussed. There needs to be a timing chart so  that the in-betweeners know what they're doing. You see back in the day when 2D animation was more prevalent  and there were 2D animation departments,  they were set up in a way  that they were the key pose draws the the key animators  and they would draw the key drawings. They would draw in the top corner somewhere. They would draw a timing chart that would show  between their key poses what the in-betweeners should do.

So once they got the key drawings done,  they would actually hand their drawings over  and let someone else finish their animation. And that was the in-betweeners. Those in-betweeners would get the drawings,  they would see the timing chart. Sometimes they would have the little note on there  of watch your arcs, making sure  that the inbetweeners aren't drawing straight lines  between the poses. And the in-betweeners would finish the animation based  on the timing charts. So they would through those be able to see, am I meant  to favor this key drawing  or that key drawing when the  character is moving through that motion.

So that's how timing charts came about  and how useful they can be. Now we can also apply them  to the project we're currently  working on with the head turn. In the case of 3D animation  and 2D digital animation, it's important  to understand timing in terms of the graph editor. We saw that briefly  with the angler fish eating the other fish when we were  working inside of After Effects. The graph editor basically displays time on the x axis  and the value change on the Y axis  and your ability to understand this  and to control it is gonna make you a better animator  and be able to help you massage  and finesse your animations in a way  that if you don't understand this, you'll always kind  of be at a novice level. So understanding  how timing is displayed in graph editors is really important  to those animation mediums.

And it's also important to understand why it's good  to learn animation, not in a single program,  especially a digital one,  because at an early stage you can get lulled into a false  sense of good animation  because the computer is giving it to you. Basically, you're setting two key frames  and the computer is interpolating  between those two key frames and giving you that animation. You're not telling it what to do on every frame,  but when you're doing animation mediums like stop motion  or hand drawing them, you have  to dictate every single frame. Nothing is given to you. And so that's why it's good at early stages  to keep practicing with those mediums so  that you're not getting lost in this false sense  of progression in your skills  when the computer is just handing you those interpretations  of minimal key frames. We wanna make sure that we're controlling exactly  what we want on every single key frame,  whether it's in any medium, it doesn't matter.

You may hear timing used in conjunction  with the term spacing. And we learned about spacing when we learned about  slowing and slow out. It's basically the two pieces of animation  that are really gonna dictate how the animation feels  and the the, the speed at which it moves. So timing refers to how long something takes to occur. Spacing talks about the distance between  that time of how those poses play out. So in the example of slowing  and slow out, you know, that's a gradual increase  of spacing over time.

And slow in would be a gradual decreasing  of spacing over time so that each frame gets closer  and closer to the next. And so those two things can dictate a lot of your animation. And it's important to understand how they relate  to each other because especially when we're doing timing  charts, that can also dictate, you know, the spacing  of those drawings. That's what's being shown in those timing charts. And whichever medium you're using,  you can use that thought process. Am I gonna favor this?

I'm gonna favor that. Even if you're not using timing charts, you can use  that skill and that thought process to help you aid aid  how you're approaching an animation. So in this lesson, we learned about timing. We learned about how it's fundamental to animation  and how it's mostly in this principle aspect. It's about specific choices. It's about the amount of time something takes, what  that conveys as far as energy in your animation, how  that is used in 2D animation,  whether it's traditional or digital.

And 3D animation. We talked about the graph editor  and how spacing also comes into play with timing. So we covered a lot and we're gonna use that  to finish this animation we've done with the head turn. And just let's get this thing done and and crank this out. And in this next lesson, I'm also gonna show you  how you can polish that up so  that you can make it look a lot nicer. We're laying the groundwork  and the framework for a good animation,  and we can make it much more pretty after the fact.

But again, it's not what moves, it's how it moves,  and that's what we're focused on now. I'll see you in the next lesson. Thanks for watching.