Most Common Animation Mistake In After Effects and How To Fix It – Wobbly Keyframes


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The “Wobbly Keyframe” problem has been plaguing After Effects animators everywhere. I made this short cast on how to get rid of the problem.
If your not sure what it looks like, check out this video.

Sick of my face? Want the three step program to obedient keyframing? Here ya go…

Step One: Select the offending Wobbly Keyframes.

Step Two: Right click and select “Keyframe Interpolation”

Step Three: Set Spacial Interpolation to “Linear”

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38 people have commented on this post. You should too!

  1. Gene Gemperline says:

    When I was just starting out this gave me the most headaches and I could never find anywhere that told me what the deal was. Great that you explained it for everyone.

    Also – another workaround would be to use hold keyframes.

    • Jiiimbooh says:

      Thanks for the “hold” tip! The problem with these wobbly keyframes just arose in a project I’m doing, but they were already set to linear. Hold keyframes solved the problem.

  2. Pingback: Most Common Animation Mistake In After Effects and How To Fix It | Sugar Mob

  3. mike says:

    I’ll be watching this later today, it’s going to come in handy

  4. Todd Kopriva says:

    This issue is described in the tip at the bottom of the “Controlling change with interpolation” page of After Effects Help:
    http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WS3878526689cb91655866c1103906c6dea-7d98a.html

    There’s also a good pair of tutorials by Aharon Rabinowitz about this:
    http://podcasts.creativecow.net/after-effects-tutorials-podcast/ae-boomerang-effect-part-1

    http://library.creativecow.net/articles/rabinowitz_aharon/boomerang_2.php

  5. Mars says:

    Sometimes I watch these beginner tutorials and I think to myself, whatever, I know this stuff. But there’s always some tiny morsel to learn in after effects.

    Case in point, I had no idea the motion path color corresponded to the layer color. lol

  6. Pingback: Most Common Animation Mistake In After Effects and How To Fix It - Wobbly Keyframes — AE Freemart

  7. curt says:

    thanks nick, that is one of my biggest problems. you helped me a ton. nice “the more you know” reference to.

  8. Zee says:

    Thanks a lot fr this post nick!! i have this problem most of the time. Finally i know how to fix it. i have a question tho, do you know how to create “double vision” effect in after effects? you know to show those “drunk” feeling

  9. Pingback: Most Common Mistake In After Effects and How To Fix It | VizWorld.com

  10. brooke says:

    Love your site Nick! keep it up.

    To get ride of this keyframing problem I always go to…AFX Preferences, General, click on “Default Spatial Interpolation to Linear”.

  11. thegorilla says:

    Great Tip Brook. Also, maybe someone can find Zee a link to a Double Vision Tutorial? Ill keep my eye out.

  12. Liam says:

    Thanks so much for this! An annoyance I didn’t even know could be fixed. Sorted.

  13. Josh Fry says:

    Thanks so much for posting this Nick. This motion path wobble issue has been a source of frustration for many years.

    Josh

  14. Vapour says:

    veryyy grateful for sharing this awesome tip.
    may God bless you :D

  15. marc says:

    you could also select the keys and, with the arrow tool selected, hold down ctrl+alt (which changes the arrow to the “carrot” tool) then click in the composition window on one of the selected keys. different method, same result. :-)

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  18. Dusty Deen says:

    Wow, this has been a problem for me for a while. Thanks so much!

  19. Jordan says:

    thank you sir! I never understood why it did i would get soo pisssed i am so glad i know ho wot handle that punk ass “wobbly keyframe” when he shows up again lol thanks again

  20. psydesigner says:

    thank you so much for this!!!

  21. Aaaaah!! I can’t remember what I was doing.. I had something orienting along a path.. and the objects would rotate around uncontrollably.. I spent hours trying to get rid of the bezier handles with the pen tool..

    Thanks for that!!
    ‘ll check out those adobe links

  22. Rakesh says:

    This really helped a lot in understanding why its happeneing, Thanks!

  23. Daniel Miori says:

    Hello Nick,

    I’m a huge fan yours. I’m sharing this Most Common Animation Mistake In After Effects and How To Fix It , on a website for editors, it’s called: http://www.oeditor.com
    I hope you don’t mind…
    I’m from Brazil, sorry for my mistakes in english…
    If you visit us, please leave a comment.
    Thanks for all!!!

  24. Tenoch says:

    Thks, helps a lot, excelent video tutorial.

    Keep the good work.

  25. ckRED says:

    THANKS!!! NO MORE SMASHING THE KEYBOARD!

  26. Ralph Stein says:

    Great Tutorial!
    Thanks for explaining what’s behind it as well!

  27. Man! I have had this issue since forever and ever! And I don’t remember how did i get to fix it then but this video opened my eyes to a new level of understanding of after effects! Man you are awesome!

  28. SuperSaf says:

    Thanks mate, i totally forgot how to do this and it was annoying the hell out of me!!!

  29. Pingback: Graphic Tuts | After Effects Linear keyframe interpolation – GreyScaleGorilla

  30. Alptonay says:

    First of all, thank you for this useful tip.. And yeah, this was happening to me very often when I was a rookie.. Actually I have found the solution accidentally while I was clicking every right click menus.. Where were you man in 2002? ;) I have spent lot’s of time to solve this… Anyway I saw this link in aetuts+ and liked your all tips.. They all work well, except tilda key.. Because we don’t have tilda key on our keyboards.. Do you know how to assign another button, for full screen issue? (Language is TR) Thanks again…

  31. AntoxaGray says:

    I had that once but I tried to fix it in graphs, and failed.

  32. Jack Parsons says:

    Gosh. THANK YOU SO MUCH! :D

  33. Jordi says:

    Thank you so much. Took me an hour to solve this shit, until I found your article <3

  34. Noelia says:

    Hi! greets from Buenos Aires Argentina!
    Gosh, If only I knew this!!!
    last week I had and 8 bit project for school delivered and in some parts I could see this error and didn’t know how to fix it!
    well, next time Ill do better!!!
    thanks so much for your help, really I stated from zero this year in my last year of Graphic design school… and didnt know shit about after effects…you are my hero!
    greets!!!

    Noelia

  35. Samuli says:

    Hey!

    I was struggling with this problem for like an hour. Thanks a lot for saving my day!

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