Notational Animating: An Interactive Approach to Creating and Editing Animation Keyframes

TL;DR

This paper presents notational animating, a novel interactive system that allows users to sketch high-level notations over static drawings, which are then interpreted by AI models to generate animation keyframes, streamlining the animation creation process.

Contribution

It formalizes sketch-based notations into structured representations and develops an interactive system with feedback mechanisms for animation authoring.

Findings

Preliminary user study shows positive usability feedback.

System effectively translates sketches into animation keyframes.

Provides fine-grained control and ambiguity resolution in animation creation.

Abstract

We introduce the concept of notational animating, an interaction paradigm for animation authoring where users sketch high-level notations over static drawings to indicate intended motions, which are then interpreted by automatic methods (e.g., GenAI models) to generate animation keyframes. Sketched notations have long served as cognitive instruments for animators, capturing forces, poses, dynamics, paths, and other animation features. However, such notations are often context-dependent, non-categorical, ambiguous, and composable based on our analysis of real-world animator-produced sketches. To facilitate interpretation, we first formalize these notations into a structured animation representation (i.e., source, path, and target). We then built an animation authoring system that translates high-level notations into the formalized intended animation, provides dynamic UI widgets for fine-grained parameter control, and establishes a closed feedback loop to resolve ambiguity. Finally, through a preliminary study with animators, we assess the usability of notational animating, reflect its affordance, and identify its contexts of use.