Animation precision question

Hello all,
I’m new to Blender,
Currently learning the basics of animation,
Is there a way in blender to insert key-frames between animation frames in order to make a more accurate motion?
Is there a way to put the time slider at a time between whole frames?
Thanks,
Oded

My only suggestion is to perhaps double the simulation time and increase the Frame Step to 2? (look under the Scene tab) Then the key frames between (odd) frames can be used as increased precision. I haven’t tried this before but it was something that I came across by accident once.

Thank for the tip Sandra!

I found that After you create a key-frame,
Blender let’s you move it to an exact time somewhere between animation frames,
And rendering and motion blur react correctly as expected.
So Blender is a time based software and not frame based software,
which makes perfect sense, for such a developed animation software to be.
But I can’t initially place the time slider in an exact time between frames,
I haven’t been able to find any way to disable the time slider’s snapping to frames.
Is there a way to do it at all?

I honestly don’t know of any way to disable snapping the time slider to whole frames. You can disable snapping the keyframes in the graph editor, so that can help already. What kind of work do you do that requires such minutia ?

Any animation of a naturalistic nature need that kind of time resolution.
For instance, naturalistic facial movement, animal or insect movement,
These are examples of tasks that require placing key-frames in a much higher precision than say 1/24 of a second,
Even if your output is a 24 fps movie, and the motion isn’t shown in a whole frame,
The intricate motion is reflected in motion blur, just like it would on film.
Time based animation software usually record key-frames with an internal “tick” time measure,
That typically has a value of 1/4800 of a second.
This allows precision key-framing, and also converting between frame-rates without changing the motion timing.
Blender allows you to move already made key-frames to a precise time between whole frames,
but it doesn’t let you place the time slider in such a time so you can create a key there or edit it there.
Or maybe I just haven’t found the way to do it…

Ok… that seems a bit extreme but I’m all for realism, so why not. I never worked with motion blur. Maybe you can just animate in a framerate that’s a higher multiple of 24, say 96 or 192 ?

That’s right, thanks for the tip!
What you suggest can be a useful workaround for the problem.
Animate in say 240 fps, set rendering for every 10th frame,
Set motion blur for 5 frames shutter.
Should work.
Only Problem with that is that the software will barely be able to give live playback of this frame-rate…

The whole historical reason movie is based on 24 fps is because at that frame rate your eye starts to blend frame to frame. What is stop motion images begins to appear as fluid motion. If object move too far in-between frames, one sees it as blur.

But, there is no blur in nature you know; just fast moving stuff. So, do you want animation that “look” naturalistic or “accurate”? What degree of accuracy is needed to make thing look natural, a millisecond control, or 24 fps?

Well it’s true that a higher framerate gives room for more subtlety, but above 50 or 60fps I’m not sure we have the physical ability of seeing any improvement anyway…

@Oded_Erell Even at 24fps you only get live playback with the most simple scenes, might as well say never. You’ll need to create viewport renders (OpenGL renders) and play them back in djv, which is honestly a fine workflow.

My experience in these matters is that every feature of a creative software,
That one artist may think isn’t very important,
Another artist uses it every day and thinks it’s essential.
What frustrates me about this is that Blender is absolutely equipped with this ability,
But just wont let me use it…