Questions for the Substitute
Why does the timing of my animation feel right during the blocking pass but feel completely wrong when brought into splines?
Here are the answers:
- Don’t do blocking passes*. They give you a false sense of timing because each key is held until the following key. This gives you a false sense of timing. Once you spline, nothing is held that didn’t have two keyframes in a row with the same value.
- There aren’t enough keys in your blocking pass. You need more keys and more breakdowns to really give yourself a right sense of timing.
- Use “Copied Pairs”. This is a technique not taught until Class3, but here’s the basics: When you character needs a held pose, go ahead and set the keys in your blocking pass. Before splining, copy the key frames for the poses that need holding and paste them ahead after the appropriate duration.
*Ignore this. You do what your director tells you to do. In this case, Steve Cady (my mentor) is ALL about the blocking pass.