Frames Per Second
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If you find that your animation is moving too quickly, you can slow it down by reducing the frame rate or, to keep your animation nice and smooth, you could move your character less between each frame and capture more pictures. If you want to make some slight adjustments to the timing of your animation you can delete individual frames or duplicate them.
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Remember that the higher the frames per second, the faster your video will play and the more frames you will need to capture!
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If you want your character to move from point A to point B in two seconds, you can work out how many frames you need to capture by multiplying the fps by the number of seconds. For two seconds of animation at 10fps you would need to capture 20 frames, at 12fps you would need to capture 24 frames and so on. It can be helpful to try animating at different frame rates and by moving your character in smaller and larger increments to see how that affects the timing of your final animation.
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Learn more about Muybridge and the history of the frame rate here
So here’s the “WHY” based on history… In the beginning of filmmaking before there was television, filmmakers had to hand crank their cameras. This meant that the speed at which the playback of the film was not standardized and there was also no audio syncronization. Basically, live musicians played to both the live action and the animated films being projected. Playback ranged from 16fps to 22fps in theaters at this time. So your film would look different each time it played in a different location. Motors were introduced to the cameras to give a better control of the speed at which the films were being recorded and this resulted in a calculation of how many frames of photography are being taken in one second. This is what we call “Frames Per Second” or “fps” for short. Also, projectors were produced with a set playback in frame rate which allowed filmmakers to calibrate their films to the projectors speed. Because of this calibration syncronized sound was invented and BOOM you had synchronized image and sound that caused the film industry explosion in the early 1900’s.
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Film Evolved to Television and so did animation… Now there were two main inventors/manufacturers of cameras and projectors in the early 1900’s in two different parts of the world. The manufacturers agree on the standard frame rate of 24fps. Because these two manufacturers set a standard for both filming and projection the incoming future manufacturers of cameras and projectors followed the norms and thus an industry standard was agreed upon. This has lasted all the way to today and that frame rate is the norm. When television was invented a bunch of standards needed to be set because signals and their bandwiths are just as important as to the size and shape of the image. Video cameras functioned a specific way and to squeeze an image into an energy wave that is transmitted over a long distance takes a bit more science and technique. Also, the attempt at getting more out of the action of the played back image was important. So they settled on two standards. These were 30fps (NTSC) for the USA and Europe used 25fps (PAL). There’s a lot more to this story but I’m keeping it simple so bare with me if you are a technology geek.
Beyond Television we get a little crazy… Because television and film were the evolving media format the standards pretty much aligned to those two outlets but with the invention of the modern computer and video games there also came a lot more standards and practices. Now HD digital television and the internet added even more standards built ontop of the old ways. Because everything has switched to digital, filmmakers and video game artists have now seen a luxury in being able to produce framerates that playback at 60fps, 70fps, 90fps, and 120fps for many productions. Yet these framerates are not exactly necessary or even appropriate for all forms of animation or even live action. The human eye has shown to only be able to receive 10 to 12 images per second. So the smoothing produced by these higher frame rates can be a lot of overkill for a production.
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Animation 1’s, 2’s, 3’s… As an animator you must understand that you would traditionally take a single photograph for each frame of animation. Since you were taking this single frame and playing all the frames back at 24fps you would be animating on 1’s at 24fps. As television got into the mix and budgets got smaller, animators needed to produce animation fast so they would take 2 photos for each piece of movement in the animation. This resulted in animating on 2’s at 30fps. This was also eventually done in filmmaking and that resulted in animating on 2’s at 24fps. Animating on 3’s was more for rests and transitions or for special choppy effects. So sometimes you will hear about artists animating on 3’s. Because the animation became standardized a whole science evolved in the study of movement and major animators started to set standards and levels of excellence that could only be reached if you understood how to achieve the movements in the standard frame rates.
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Combining 1’s, 2’s, 3’s… As time went on animators soon discovered that you could blend different counting techniques such as using 1’s for actions and 2’s for dialogue or basic movements. This resulted in animators shooting on 1’s and 2’s in a 24fps, 25fps, or 30fps delivery system. Once again 3’s were used for transitions or rests between movements. This blending of counting frames of movement often results in a greater control of movement and performance while maintaining control on time and budget of a production. This allowed or all kinds of special performances and looks to be achieved and the bar for animation has been raised once again.
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Resting and Holding Frames… There is a technique in modern animation that a subject in the animation holds for a specific amount of frames. This is part of the performance side of things. For instance you would have a character talking and all the movement expect that character in the frame would hold. This could be for many seconds. This is to prevent what is called “upstaging” of the main character. The other instance is to hold a character for a number of frames from a half second or for 1 to 2 seconds. This is called a rest. This is a technique in where the character is resting between the action and is often times a necessity since a character can look crazy constantly moving on screen and distracting from an actual performance. It’s not necessarily a rule but it is a technique. Many people confuse rests with frames per second. This is usually because they lack knowledge or education in the matter. You must understand the difference. Animation has a language and it is important to speak in that language in production or you will never fully reach your potential when working with others.
(adapted from the website by - )
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