How to ease-in the animation?

This week I thought a lot about stretch and squash, ease-in and out, timing. All this thought s were pointed toward exercise I should do first in order to get things right.

I thought to do this by 2D and 3D, but my Genius tablet is acting up, so I didn't do much 2D as I planned.

At the end I read through some books, and done few animations.

Ease-in and Ease-out

In following example I tried to put linear cycle of the falling ball and eased in cycle together so I could see what impact difference it makes.

My initial observations, as well as prior knowledge were that to every organic motion there is a rhythm, slow-ins and slow-outs if you will. We don't walk linear, and our joints can't stop in place. So easing-in and out of motion is what makes motion believable.

In this example, first two motions are linear, while other two are eased. First ball would be appropriate for a elevator or some mechanical contraption, but it certainly is not a real ball.

Linear motion, in this case fall, disregards gravity, so that is a further fact that makes motion less believable.

Other two balls I tried to display mass quality as well. If ball has a great mass, then it would take more time for it to pass extreme position (in this case, highest or lowest position). Inertia would bind it and hold it for a while.

I tried to do it by flattening out the y position curves in peak spots.

To summarize:

• Easing-in and out of motion is a process in which speed of a motion is either increased toward the finish of the motion or decreased. This is done by in/decreasing number of different in-betweens or by adjusting the type of curve in more of an S shape in 3D software.

• It helps convey natural motion, mass of the object or external forces that act on an object (gravity)

• Lack of ease-in or ease-out can convey mechanical nature of the motion, when appropriate.

My next post will deal probably with stretch/squash and timing