Animating Kids

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Recipe 2 - Frames Per Second

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What You Will Learn

Animating Kids lessons are based upon a 15 Frames-Per-Second (15fps) frame rate. This is very important to understand. You will learn the difference between different frame rates, and why we choose to work at 15fps. Animation involves math and time and space. Mastering the pace of the action in animation is a result of understanding all of these concepts in light of the frame rate.

Why Is This Important?

This is one of the most difficult things for a new animator to grasp. The constant frame rate creates the need to space animated characters and props in unique and clever ways. We introduce this concept early in the process, because it is the time signature we are limited by as we create our animations.

Even when nothing is happening in our movie, we still have to take 15 pictures per second of nothing happening! Because whether or not something moves or stays still, we still have to respect that the movie must play 15 pictures per second. Even if it is 15 pictures of stillness. 

Learning how many pictures to take for each second of our movie is a basic skills.