 Welcome back to another FNA and this is part five of the most common animation mistakes that I'm going to talk about the one frame direction change. If you've taken my class, there's probably something you don't want to hear again, and that is either tangent or one frame direction change. Now, this kind of goes hand in hand with ease in and out, arcs and spacing is also kind of within the same family. But at the same time, it's also very specific. So I'll show you a couple of examples of how a one frame direction change will make sense. And what it means when you do have any animation, but you don't really intend to have it in it. In short, it's something that is pretend you lift your hand like this and you want to do a gesture. Let's say something like this. You go up and you hold the button and come back down. The problem is that if you do this and spacing wise, you go like that and then you go back down the same way or like this and then like that. But it's something where it feels like you hit that invisible wall, then that's exactly the feeling. It feels like something is stopping your movement or something is affecting a change. That's an outside force. So generally, I would say when you do have a one frame direction change, it's because it's an outside force that affects the character. When I say outside forces, it could be something that has its own movement and energy or just a static thing like a wall. So like I said, if you move your arm and you hit a wall, that's going to change and it's going to change the direction. It's like a ball bouncing off a wall. Or if I want to point somewhere and someone slaps my hand down, that's going to be a one frame direction change. But it makes sense because this hand is driving that hand down. You just don't want to have it when there is a normal movement, a head turn, a body turn, an arm move or whatever you have, right? Let's go through a couple of examples. So one of the classic shots in Lord of the Rings. I mean, that movie has a lot of classic shots. But to me, here's an example, right? So you have Gandalf moving back and he hits here the Kendall light thingy. What are you going to call this? And he is the outside force changing the direction and the movement of this, right? This is already kind of moving for whatever reason, probably touching it a little bit. But as he hits this, you can see how suddenly, spacing wise, this will be static and then suddenly it will move because he is the outside force affecting this. Now, if you look at this, here's the opposite. He moves, turns around and bam, that is your one frame direction change. So imagine when your character does this, this is stopping the movement of the head. And you can see the awesome continuation of the hair, bam, but the head stays still. And you can see again how the hair continues to flow, which is really cool. But this is, imagine this beam is not here. It would not make sense for the head to suddenly stop. But that's what I see in a lot of the student clips is when there is a head move that stops or just changes or you want to do a head turn, but it's kind of very angular in its turn or like an arm gesture, like I said, or anything. Suddenly there's this sudden change and it's not a bad arc or, I mean, it is a bad arc in bad spacing. But there's something about an arc that's just kind of sloppy and has pops or just your spacing that has something pops, but it's not this sudden change of direction. And if you have that, there must be a specific reason for it. So either an object that stops your movement or an outside force. So let's continue. One of my other favorite clips is this one. I just love this, it cracks me up every time. So you have, you know, there will be some sort of movement because of the water and he's going slowly forward. But then look at, if you look at this line here, bam. And that dolphin hits him right there. You can see that this is quite the impact in the change of direction. So you can feel and see that change. And this dolphin is the outside force that will affect a change of direction. So when you have a spacing like this, then it makes sense because that affects this. Same thing for static objects. So when you have this moving in and it's a fantastic slow motion, I want to play this even though I'm making my point here. Look at all the detail. This is so cool. The slow motion guys are fantastic. So if you ever need reference of slow moving things, they got you covered. But you can see this here and I can show you a clip where it's actually in real time. Or watch this. That's how to move there. Let's play this again a bit faster, which will still be slow motion. But you can see how things are suddenly moving from here to here. Why? Because this is the outside force that affects that movement. So even with the creature bouncing off walls, you're going to have that direction change, but it's going to be a bit smoother. Still, you kind of feel this. Again, this is because the creature cannot just continue and smoothly change direction. It's going to be a sudden impact. So for you, if we look at this separately, this leg and the paw, all that is going to change very quickly. Look at that beautiful arc there. But the body is going to have compression and be a bit smoother. But when you have paws like this that hit here, that hit that wall, they are going to stop. And you can see this. They're stopping with a squash in there. So you got your stretch and your squash. Then it's okay to change your spacing and have it immediately stop. Because like I said, this is hitting that wall, but then the rest of the body isn't. So I found this tennis ball clip here. And if you watch this, you can exactly see this with the arc and the spacing. This is moving this way with my fantastic arrow. And then here the racket comes in and that is the outside force that changes the direction. And you can see the crazy squishing of the ball here and then goes over this way. So when you are in Maya and you have your motion trail and you see this, it's okay if there's a wall or if there's an outside object affecting your object. But if it's an arm swing or a regular head turn and you see this, then you have to make sure to change your spacing and your arc to whatever this would be to make it a smooth arc with proper ease in and ease out. So if we move to the bouncing ball, you can see this here. As the ball goes up, hang time and stops. Now the difference here is that the ball is hitting the ground and here is your direction change. So once again, if I do this and I create a motion trail, you can see this again. I'm using my tool here. That is the proper change of direction with hang time. And here you have your one-frame direction changes because there is a surface that the ball hits. Again, this all falls back into ease in and ease out and spacing and just in the arcs. It's just all kind of within the same thing of tracking your wrist, your nose tip, your sore tip, your root, whatever you have of your character or your object and making sure that things move properly to convey the proper weight. And if it's a performance, also all that weight will emphasize certain performance, a slump and as someone that's excited or someone that's active and so on and so on. But you having really good control and purposeful control over your spacing is key so that you can portray this properly in your animation so that there is a sense of something hitting the wall because it's their own purpose and not just something that you missed where your arc is kind of tricky or it's not even like I said, it's not even an arc that's just kind of bad. It's just a full-on change of direction. So take the time, as I said before, track your arcs and track the spacing to see what your limbs and what your body parts or object parts are doing so that there is no confusion. So that when you watch the clip, you don't feel like, why is there a wall that I missed? There's just something, why was the character stopping there? That's all up to you to fix it and to make it clear. Speaking of clear, if you feel like this cleared some things up, it's my usual page at the end, but if you feel like this is helpful and you want to work with me and you want me to help you with your shots, I do have workshops that you can sign up at any time. Link in the description with all the information. Speaking of information, if you feel stupid, but if you don't want to miss the things that I upload, you can subscribe. If you want to, you can hit that bell button to get all notifications. That would be awesome. It helps my channel grow. I also upload very frequently. And speaking of frequency, I don't think I can lead into the next thing, but if you're still watching this, you're very patient. Thank you so much and I will see you in my next clip.