1. Home
  2. Docs
  3. AnimCopy
  4. Timing & Ease Introduction

Timing & Ease Introduction

AnimCopy is an add-on for Blender that allows you to copy all animation data, just the timing, or just ease from one object to another.

What is Timing?

Timing refers to how long a movement takes. The speed gives meaning to an object’s movement. In animation, timing/speed can be used to show an object’s weight and the emotional status of a character. If a character moves slowly, they can appear lazy or relaxed. Conversely, a character moving quickly imparts energy: nervousness, happiness, etc. When done correctly, your animations will appear to have emotion and obey the laws of physics, thereby feeling more alive.

Timing can be set in the Graph Editor. This action’s timing has keyframes on Frame 1, 30, and 40.

In computer animation, a movement’s timing/speed can be increased by moving keyframes closer together or decreased by moving them farther apart.

What is Ease?

Ease (sometimes called “Spacing”) is the way in which an object accelerates or decelerates. It communicates a lot about an object’s weight. For example, a heavy object will usually take longer to accelerate/decelerate than a lighter object. For example, imagine how long it takes a bus to get to its cruising speed compared to a motorcycle. This relationship is very useful for communicating weight in animation. In many animation applications, the ease is controlled using a keyframe’s Bezier handle length in a Graph Editor / Curve Editor.

The ease of these keyframes is set by extending their Bezier handles. Longer handles will keep the action’s timing closer to the keyframe.

You’ll usually need to work with multiple F-Curves to create motion. For example, an object might be moving in location on the X axis while rotating on the Y axis. When your eases don’t match, the motion can feel disjointed, weightless, or ‘swimmy’ as it’s called.

In this example, the cube’s X Location and Y Euler Rotation’s timings match, however their eases do not.

‘Swimmy’ Ease

By matching your F-Curve’s eases, the motion feels connected & motivated in action, while the illusion of weight is preserved. Copy Timing & Ease is an add-on for achieving this effect with very little effort.

Matched Ease

How can we help?