When to Use Different Interpolation Types

[Thrashador]

Hey all,
I've been working on some animations recently, and I suddenly realized that I've pretty much always defaulted to smooth interpolation, except for occasional bezier when I want to get really specific.

So, I was wondering, what do you all tend to do for your animations? When is it best to use ease in and ease out compared to smooth interpolation?

[Greenlaw]

I always keep the default interpolation set to Copy Previous Key. This makes Moho choose the previous interpolation for new keys, similar to how After Effects does it. IMO, this is much easier to animate with.

For the keys themselves, I mostly use Smooth, and will switch to Linear when I need a constant rate.

Even though there is a Step mode available, I usually just copy the key to hold the pose. If find it easier this way when editing/re-timing the animation. But I will use Step mode where appropriate when I know the animation is not going to change, like inside a Smart Bone action for example, or when I need a 'poppy' stop-motion look.

When setting up Smart Bone actions, I always set a Linear key at frame 1 for the smart bone and any animated elements. This makes it a whole lot easier to keep all action elements in sync during the action playback on the Mainline. You can use Smooth or whatever for the Smart Bone on the Mainline of course. Frame 0 inside a Smart Bone action is usually set to Smooth but could be Step when the Action is driving a Switch layer with many drawings that I need to switch non-linearly, like mouth shapes for example.

I use Cycle keys a lot too but that's not really an interpolation mode. I think Cycle keys adopt whatever interpolation mode was being used in the key, but I'm not 100% certain about that. (Edit: Actually, after thinking about this, I believe it uses whatever mode is being used by the key it's cycling to. This makes more sense since Interpolation affects the curve shape after the key.)

I sometimes use Bezier mode. It's incredibly useful when I need it but it's actually pretty rare for me to use it.

Elastic and Bounce are fun to play with but I haven't had to use these in an actual production scene. They're pretty specialized and you need to be sure you really want the character to move like that ALL the time.

I would use Ease In, Out, and In/Out modes but they don't really behave the way I expect them too. TBH, I'm not sure they work properly at all. I know each Interpolation mode affects the curve after the key it's applied to (except for Smooth, which affects both sides of the key,) but when I use any of the Ease modes, the curve shape in Graph Editor doesn't look like what I expect. Ease Out should mean 'slowly move out from this key' and Ease In should means 'slowly move into the next key', and Ease In/Out should make an S curve between the current and next key, but Moho isn't really doing that with these modes. So this is usually when I switch to Bezier mode.

I wish the Ease modes worked more like what I find in other programs like After Effects, Vegas, Acid...just select it and forget it.

Anyway, that's how I use the various modes.

[chucky]

Anyone else noticed step interpolation on 12.5 not working, or is it just me? Very weird.

[Greenlaw]

I'll check when I get home. (Still using 12.4 at work.)

[synthsin75]

Anyone else noticed step interpolation on 12.5 not working, or is it just me? Very weird.

Works fine here. Any specific channel giving you trouble?

[chucky]

Yeah bones Dennis. Very strange.
Hey what about particles (especially in a resized group?) I'm getting a few new oddities of late.

[hayasidist]

bones step interp on rotate, translate, scale all OK here 12.5 22438

Also, there was weird behaviour with particles that seems to have been fixed in 22438

maybe worth a quick check on which build you have?

[chucky]

Ahah| l have 22414. But l haven't got any update notices . Grrr .

Neither of my serial numbers work, I'm getting 'No Qualify Error'

[hayasidist]

yeah - 22414 was a disaster zone.

[Greenlaw]

That's weird. I'm sure you tried 'Check For Updates'. How about if you download the official 12.5 'trial' release from the website? Will your serial work with that version? That should be the very latest version of 12.5 anyway.