A key frame (or keyframe) in animation and filmmaking is a drawing which defines the starting and ending points of any smooth transition. They are called "frames" because their position in time is measured in frames on a strip of film. A sequence of keyframes defines which movement the spectator will see, whereas the position of the keyframes on the film, video or animation defines the timing of the movement. Because only two or three keyframes over the span of a second does not create the illusion of movement, the remaining frames are filled with inbetweens. B pictures (often called B frames) are one of the three major picture types found in typical video compression designs. ... The three major picture types found in typical video compression designs are I(ntra) pictures, P(redicted) pictures, and B(i-predictive) pictures (or B(i-directional) pictures). ... The bouncing ball animation (below) consists of these 6 frames. ... A film being made in Warsaw, Bracka street Filmmaking is the process of making a film, from an initial story idea or commission through scriptwriting, shooting, editing and finally distribution to an audience. ... In film editing, a dissolve is a gradual transition from one image to another. ... It has been suggested that video frame be merged into this article or section. ... Comic timing is use of rhythm and tempo to enhance comedy and humor. ... This animated GIF demonstrates the effects of Adobe Flash shape, motion and color tweening. ...

Key drawings and corrected, inbetweened animation

the 'inbetweener' who does the rest.===Use of key frames=== In computer animation this workflow is basically the same. The animator creates the important frames of a sequence, then the software fills in the gap. For example, in Adobe Flash, the animator can specify, in keyframes, the starting and ending position of an object, such as a circle. Flash smoothly translates the object from the starting point to the ending point. This is called tweening. The animator can correct the result at any point in time, shifting keyframes back and forth to improve the timing and dynamics of a movement, or change an 'inbetween' into an additional keyframe to further refine the movement. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 178 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (356 × 1200 pixel, file size: 100 KB, MIME type: image/png) Key animation drawings versus the corrected and inbetweened animation in Noein episode 12, animation by Ryochimo. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 178 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (356 × 1200 pixel, file size: 100 KB, MIME type: image/png) Key animation drawings versus the corrected and inbetweened animation in Noein episode 12, animation by Ryochimo. ... Renewal of the surface coating of an adobe wall in Chamisal, New Mexico Adobe is a natural building material composed of sand, sandy clay and straw or other organic materials, which is shaped into bricks using wooden frames and dried in the sun. ... Adobe Flash, or simply Flash, refers to both the Adobe Flash Player, and to the Adobe Flash Professional multimedia authoring program. ... Circle illustration This article is about the shape and mathematical concept of circle. ... In physics, a translation is the operation changing the positions of all objects according to the formula where is a constant vector. ... This animated GIF demonstrates the effects of Adobe Flash shape, motion and color tweening. ...

A very simple animation created by keyframing. The animation lacks smoothness because each frame is completely independent of any other frame.

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Keyframing

There is also an animation technique known as keyframing. Contrary to tweening, every frame of a keyframed computer animation is directly modified or manipulated by the creator, such that no tweening has actually occurred. This method is similar to the drawing of traditional animation, and is chosen by artists who wish to have complete control over the animation.

In-depth examples

As noted above, a key frame defines the starting and ending points of any smooth transition. Consider the examples below, created using animated GIFs: An example of a GIF image. ...

As applied to motion

An object will move from the top left corner of the frame to the bottom right corner. One of the two keyframes present in this animation will contain the object at the top left corner of the frame, while the other keyframe will show the object at the bottom right corner. Everything in between can be interpolated smoothly. This article is about interpolation in mathematics. ...

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As applied to shape transformations

In a shape transformation, the first key frame contains the original shape, while the ending keyframe contains the transformed shape. Shape transformations defined by key frames cannot accurately show how the shape will be transformed in between the two key frames. In Adobe Flash, shape hints can be added to both original and transformed shapes to give the program a better idea of the interpolation.

Shape transformations USING shape hints

The Starting Keyframe

The Ending Keyframe

The Completed Animation

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As applied to color transformations

When an object changes its color smoothly, the animation can be defined by key frames, the first showing its original color, and the second showing its final color.

Color transformations using key frames

The Starting Keyframe

The Ending Keyframe

The Completed Animation

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Video editing

In non-linear digital video editing as well as in video compositing software, a key frame is a frame used to indicate the beginning or end of a change made to the signal. For instance, a key frame could be set to indicate the point at which audio will have faded up or down to a certain level. A non-linear editing system is a video editing or audio editing system that can perform random access on the source material. ... Digital video is a type of video recording system that works by using a digital, rather than analog, of the video signal. ... The term video editing can refer to: non-linear editing system, using computers with video editing software linear video editing, using videotape Video editing is the process of re-arranging or modifying segments of video to form another piece of video. ... In visual effects post-production, compositing refers to creating new images or moving images by combining images from different sources – such as real-world digital video, film, synthetic 3-D imagery, 2-D animations, painted backdrops, digital still photographs, and text. ...

Video compression

In video compression, a key frame, also known as an Intra Frame, is a frame in which a complete image is stored in the data stream. In lossy video compression, only changes that occur from one frame to the next are stored in the data stream, in order to greatly reduce the amount of information that must be stored. This technique capitalizes on the fact that most video sources (such as a typical movie) have only small changes in the image from one frame to the next. Whenever a drastic change to the image occurs, such as when switching from one camera shot to another, or at a scene change, a key frame must be created. The entire image for the frame must be output because the visual difference between the two frames is so great that the new image cannot be reproduced incrementally from the previous frame. Video compression refers to making a digital video signal use less data, without noticeably reducing the quality of the picture. ... Original Image (lossless PNG, 60. ...

Because lossy video compression only stores incremental changes between frames (except for key frames), it is not possible to fast forward or rewind to any arbitrary spot in the video stream. That is because the data for a given frame only represents how that frame was different from the preceding frame. For that reason it is beneficial to include key frames at arbitrary intervals while encoding video. For example, a key frame may be output once for each 10 seconds of video, even though the video image does not change enough visually to warrant the automatic creation of the key frame. That would allow seeking within the video stream at a maximum of 10 second intervals. The down side is that the resulting video stream will be larger in size because many key frames were added when they were not necessary for the visual representation of the frame.

References

This article was originally based on material from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, which is licensed under the GFDL. This article does not cite any references or sources. ... “GFDL” redirects here. ...