Week 2 － Weight in Animation – CheHsin's animation Blog

1. Timing & Spacing

This is one of the most important basic concepts we learned this week.

The presentation first introduced the Time Chart :

A planning chart that shows the timing, spacing and placement of drawings between key poses.

It can be understood as a movement planning chart for animation. It helps us decide:

How many frames a movement needs
How many in-between frames should be placed between keyframes
The distance between each frame
Whether the movement accelerates or slows down

Timing ≠ Spacing

These two concepts are easy to confuse.

Timing is how long a movement takes, while spacing describes the distance between each frame.

Timing = how many frames a movement takes
Spacing = the distance between each frame

By changing timing and spacing, we can make an object feel faster, slower, lighter, or heavier.

My Understanding

I can think of it simply as:

Timing = How long?
Spacing = How does it move during that time?

Therefore, even if two objects both use 20 frames, they can still have completely different feelings of weight.

2. Weight & Physics

We also looked at the basic physics of movement:

F = m × a

A heavier object needs more time to accelerate under the same force. This means that mass can affect how quickly an object starts moving or changes its speed.

For animation, this helps us create more believable movement and weight.

3. An Example from Attack on Titan

During the class, the teacher used the example of a giant and a small character to explain how different sizes and weights can affect movement.

This reminded me of Attack on Titan. The Titans often move with large movements and relatively slow timing, which makes their bodies feel huge and heavy. In comparison, the human characters move much faster and their actions usually have smaller movements and shorter spacing.

This made me realise that movement size, timing and spacing can work together to communicate the scale and weight of a character.

4. Further reading

The Animator’s Survival Kit

I read pages 84–99 of Richard Williams’ The Animator’s Survival Kit, which focuses on spacing and movement.

Key Points

Spacing: In-between frames should not always be placed exactly in the middle. Different spacing can create different speeds and feelings of movement.
Mass & Contact: Animators should think about objects as masses. Squash and deformation should happen at the moment of contact to make weight feel believable.
Movement Arcs: Most natural movements follow curved paths. Using clear arcs can make animation smoother and more natural.
Fast Movement: Elongated in-betweens can help create the feeling of speed and motion blur.
Common Mistake: Beginners often put too much movement into too little time. Adding more frames can make the action clearer and easier to follow.

The Basics of Animation Production: The Art of Time and Space – TED Ed

During the class, the teacher showed us the TED-Ed video The Basics of Animation Production: The Art of Time and Space. I watched it again in my free time and posted it here for future review.