Description

Onion Skinning is a special effect technique that enables you to view more than one keyframe on a stage at once during your authoring process. The term comes from animators' use of tracing paper, thin, translucent like online skins, to lay over one state of animation to create the next. This way, animators can retain the general stance of a cartoon character and just change the smile, arm position, etc. in a series of progressive cels for frames.

In this lesson, you will learn how to use onion-skins to create simple frame-by-frame animation.

Objectives

By the end of this lesson, you will successfully:

• create a frame-by-frame (f-b-f) animation.
• understand the difference between the use f-b-f versus tweening.
• transfer symbols between libraries.

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Make the Connection

Think of original cartoon movies and flip books. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using f-b-f animation vs. tweening?  How would this technique be effective for your project?  How have you seen f-b-f being used effectively? When you view an animation, can you tell if the movement is created by f-b-f or by tweening?

Resources - Extend your Learning

No resources are recommended for this lesson. Use the time to work on your final project.

Please continue with the next section of this lesson.

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10.1 Onion-Skinning » 10.2 Onion-Skinning Exercise