The terminology of the animation library
The animation library was named the way it was quite intentionally; the vocabulary of the animation object very closely matches the vocabulary of animating images. Let's look at a few of the terms we'll be using heavily throughout this chapter.
- Frame: A frame of an animation is, in this context, the state of the servo at a given instance in time. As you can imagine, programming each and every frame of servo movement for a complex group of servos, such as a limb, would be a nightmare. Luckily, technology is on our side here, and we won't have to write each and every frame.
- Keyframe: A keyframe is a point in an animation that serves as an anchor unless you're drawing (or programming) every frame of an animation by hand; you establish a set of keyframes that establish the major points of movement for the animation. For example, in our full sweep we were doing earlier, a good set of keyframes would be something like this:
- Start at any degree
- Be at
0degrees...
