STRAIGHT AHEAD vs POSE TO POSE

1: STRAIGHT AHEAD
Straight ahead is the loosest way to animate, as you move from key to key forward in time. The main drawbacks are a loss of control, it’s easy to lose or gain volume, and complex scenes are harder to plan.

2: POSE TO POSE
Most classically trained animators lean towards pose to pose, as this allows them to block in the scene, starting from the first and last keys, then posing out the major keys between them. The animation is planned in a more structured way. The main drawback is that pose to pose tends to tighten the animation, and discourages really extravagant actions.

3: POSE TO POSE ROBOT
A good example of simple pose to pose. The first and last keys were done first (start and stop positions). The third key was done second, the fifth was done second, and the remaining ones were blocked in after.

4: TRIPOD
Had I tried to straight-head this brain-boggling 3-legged walk the legs would definitely have ended in a tangle. No doubt there are people who could do this straight ahead, but most people I think would find it easier to plan it pose to pose.

5: HAIR & CLOTHING
From my series on secondary action (drag), a great way to combine pose to pose and straight ahead is to animate the body on pose to pose, but any secondary action straight ahead. E.G., once the body is done, animate a key for the coat every 6 frames, one for the scarf every 8, one for the hair every 4, and so on. The common problem of jagged motion on clothes, hair and fur tends to disappear.

FX: WATER / FIRE / SMOKE / EXPLOSIONS
This is a link to my mini-course on FX animation – because FX is usually better when an animated straight-ahead, as the chaotic undulations in natural phenomena are easier to capture with the looser A-B-C-D process, instead of planning it tightly A-D-B-C, etc.
In addition, I use breakdowns aggressively to add roiling effects.