Shift and trace

- When you're animating by drawing an image,…one of the biggest problems is maintaining the model.…You can drift off model very easily,…and all kinds of things could happen.…As you draw, you tend to gain volume.…The physical amount of mass of the character…tends to grow.…Luckily, there's a technique that we used to use, still use,…called Shift and Trace, which you can use…to basically check your work for consistency.…So, here I have my earlier rough fellow…from a little sketch head,…and on a second frame, I've drawn in another keyframe…to where I think he might want to move.…

So the transition from one to the other looks pretty nice.…I've just lightly sketched in using the Brush tool,…I'm using this Texture tool here.…The thing is, it's kinda hard to tell,…because of the amount of distance…that these guys have moved,…just exactly, is this really, the same size or not?…Ideally I want to move one drawing under the other,…but obviously if I start doing that here,…I'm shifting around things,…and all kinds of mistakes could happen then.…