key frames are the foundation of animation.
Even if you aren't familiar with animation,
you've probably still heard of the word frames as in
frames per second,
frames are basically just still images and the number of frames per second
is how many still images are shown sequentially on screen per second.
A sequence of frames creates a moving image.
Key frames are the most important or key
frames in a moving image
and foreign animation. These are set manually by a human animator.
The key frames are typically where the key poses of your characters lie.
In other words, if someone was doing a run cycle,
the key frames would be most likely at the extreme points of the run cycle as well
as some important transitions between how the legs
move relative to the rest of the body.
So what do key frames do for animation?
Well in digital animation,
if you mark the key poses,
the software can often interpolate or blend
the frames in between so that you get a smooth movement between key frames.
This is also known as tweeting and key
frames are the foundation of animation because without them
the software would not know how to Tween or how to move the character.
I'm going to quickly demonstrate how to create and edit key frames and blunder.
Now it's very important to know that key
framing works functionally the same for objects,
bones and you can even key frame visibility, materials and several other values.
Before we begin, I want you to know that there are three key frame editors.
These are the graph editor,
the dope sheet
and the timeline.
All three of these have the ability to manipulate key
frames and I will reference them here and there.
But the timeline is what will be showing as the default
screen has it at the bottom of the layout workspace.
However, we'll go in depth about each of these editors in their own separate videos.
The first thing we want to know is how to insert key frames.
There are several ways to do this but it's simple enough.
The first way is to simply select something and right click for a context menu or
right click directly on the value and see if it has the insert key frame option
if so that value can be key framed.
Let's take this rotation mode drop down.
For example,
as you can see the value will turn yellow meaning there
is a key frame on your current frame for that value.
This will also create a visible key frame in
your dope sheet and timeline at your current frame
marked by the small yellow shapes.
They should be yellow circles by default but are
sometimes squares or diamonds depending on your handle type.
They are also typically diamonds in the timeline
but we'll get more into this in the dope sheet and timeline videos
For some things such as objects and bones in the 3D view port.
You'll also see an additional menu pop up when you try to insert key frames.
For example, if we select our cube, you'll see a list of options that looks like this.
I typically pick lock rot scale
as it will insert a key frame in all three transformation channels
but feel free to experiment and choose an
option that is most appropriate for your situation
for hockey users simply select the object you want
to key frame or hover over the value.
You want to key frame and press I as an insert to insert a key frame in the same way.
Another way to insert key frames is with the auto key frame feature
enabling auto key frame mode will actually
automatically record changes and transformations we make
to any object in our three D scene and insert key frames for us.
It will also record changes in values that have been key framed before
to test this out. I'm going to select a different object.
In fact, let's add a monkey to our scene
and to set a key frame for this monkey object on our current frame.
With the auto key frame feature we can go to
our timeline and press this white circle record icon button.
Now that auto key frame is enabled if we move or transform our monkey in some way in the
view port you can see a key frame being
automatically generated here in our timeline and dope sheet.
Now you may notice after inserting the first key frame
transforming our object further doesn't seem to insert new key frames
but the reality is it is changing the current key frame? It's just replacing it
to insert a separate key frame. Will want to change our current frame first.
So how do we move our current frame to a different position in the timeline?
The current frame is indicated by this value here, which you can edit manually,
like most values and blunder
but a few other ways is to left click, drag the top of the timeline here
or hold
and use the scroll wheel
for fine tuning. You can also press the left and right arrow keys
Anyways for this, I'm going to just move to frame 20.
Once we move to a later point in our timeline,
let's set another key frame by simply transforming our object. Again,
I'm going to move it just a bit to the right
now that we have more than one key frame.
We can see the automatic interpolation or tweeting process
that the software does for us to create animation.
Let's drag our timeline back to the beginning and press the play button
for hockey users. You can press space bar.
Okay now you can see our monkey is moving.
What we're seeing here is the software taking are two key frames
and interpolated the transformation between the
first location and the second location.
This interpolation can be tweaked in the dope sheet or graph
editor but we'll talk about those in their own separate videos.
For now. This is our masterpiece.
But what if you want to delete key frames? How do we do that well?
To delete key frames, you can simply use the timeline or dope sheet.
Select the key frames you want to delete with left click and press the delete key.
Alternatively,
you can also navigate to the frame with that
key frame and right click for a context menu.
Then select delete key frame
quick tip from the same menu.
You can also click clear key frames to delete all key frames for that value.
It's important to note however,
that the delete key frames option is not
available in the three D view port context menu
but you can still go to the object menu,
Go to animation
and select delete key frame from that menu.
For hockey users,
you can select the object or hover over the value with
the key frame on the current frame and press alta.
I
to delete key frames in the same way.
One more thing you want to know about key
frames is the ability to change key frame type.
This might sound advanced but in reality it just means key frame color.
This is used for organization of key frames that are used for certain purposes.
For example,
you can mark your extreme pose key frames by selecting
them right click in the timeline for a context menu,
go to key frame type and select extreme.
This would give your selected key frames. The extreme pink key frame color.
Other colors include blue, orange and green.
For hockey users,
you can hover over the timeline and press the R key to bring up the key frame type menu,
and those are the fundamentals of key frames.
I hope this gives you insight on how animation works
and how to create your own animation in blender.
In the meantime,
we'll be going over how to edit and manipulate key frames in the dope sheet,
the timeline and the graph editor in their separate videos.