Onion Skinning - What is it?

When you are animating, onion skinning is a technique that you just can't do without. Back in the  early 1920s Disney™ animators would create each frame of their animations on different transparent sheets, or gels. These early animators came up with onion skinning as a way to ensure that these individual gels lined up properly to create a seamless animation.

In the first frame of the animation the animator draws an outline of the animated character, to which no colour is added. A second gel is laid over the first. In the second gel, the animator re-draws the animation, but moves the character slightly into the position necessary for frame two of the animated sequence. The advantage of this process is that you can see the previous position of the animation you are drawing through the transparent gels.

The process is repeated by adding additional gels, one on top of the other. Each gel is a frame of the animation. By holding the gels to the light they could see all the positions of the animated character in one view.

I Can Animate uses this technique to see the progressive movement of an object, essential when trying to gauge the distance to move objects from one frame to another. 
If you choose to use the onion skin, the the preview will show the selected frame and the feed through the camera, overlaid.
   

Onion Skinning in the Android version of I Can Animate
A maximum of five frames and the feed from the camera may be onion skinned in the desktop versions.

You may also find this feature useful if you inadvertently move your model or camera, allowing you to re-position either with accuracy.

Selecting the Onion skin (Windows)

OK it's time to get your onion and peel it...

The Onion Skin feature works in a similar way in all versions of I Can Animate.
Onion skinning is used in the Capture window. By default it is probably switched off but just select the disclosure arrow in the control panel and from the menu choose how many frames you wish to use in your onion skin. It is probably best to use just one to begin with.

You can change the relative opacity of the camera to the selected frames by using the Balance slider control. This slider is only enabled when the view is set to onion skinning. To the left will enhance the captured slides and to the right the live feed from the camera.

Toggling the Onion Skin

You can quickly toggle between the last captured frame and the live feed by pressing and releasing the Q key on the keyboard. (On the Mac you can set it to automatically toggle). You can find out more by downloading the user guides and online. 

Download a FREE demo copy of I Can Animate and try it.

Oh bye the way, you don't need an onion...