What are the benefits and drawbacks of using linear interpolation in motion design?

Linear interpolation offers several benefits for motion designers. It's easy to apply and edit—simply set the keyframes, and the software handles the rest. Its predictability and consistency make it useful, as you can calculate values between keyframes without complex adjustments. Additionally, it's compatible with most formats like GIFs, SVGs, and videos, ensuring smooth exports without loss of quality. These advantages make linear interpolation a valuable tool for straightforward animations that need to work seamlessly across platforms.

Simple to apply and edit, requiring only keyframes. Values are consistent and easy to calculate between keyframes. Works well with most formats and platforms, ensuring smooth exports as GIFs, SVGs, or videos.

Linear interpolation is a simple and efficient technique for creating motion in design. It's easy to understand and implement, and it offers direct control over the starting and ending points of the motion. However, it can sometimes produce unnatural or jerky movements, especially for complex animations.

Benefits: Simplicity: Easy to implement. Predictability: Smooth, constant rate of change. Performance: Fast rendering, low computational cost. Drawbacks: Unrealistic Motion: Mechanical and unnatural. Limited Creativity: Visually uninteresting.

The main benefit of linear interpolation in any form of animation is that it's simple to understand and straightforward especially for beginners. I personally use linear keys for almost any kind of camera animation or anytime I have to make something loopable.

Linear interpolation, while simple and efficient, can produce unnatural or jerky movements, especially for complex animations. It also offers limited control over intermediate frames, making it difficult to create non-linear motions like acceleration or deceleration. As a result, while it's a good starting point, more advanced techniques like cubic Bézier curves or easing functions are often necessary for creating realistic and expressive animations.

Linear interpolation has some drawbacks that can affect the quality of animations. Its constant motion can feel unnatural and lack the variation found in real-life movements like acceleration or easing. This uniformity may make animations look stiff and uninteresting. Additionally, linear interpolation can create visual glitches, like objects overlapping when they move at different speeds. Lastly, relying solely on linear interpolation can limit creativity, missing out on more dynamic and expressive effects offered by other methods like ease-in, ease-out, or bounce.

Motion is constant and uniform, lacking natural variation and dynamics like acceleration and deceleration. Can create overlapping or intersecting objects when moving at different speeds.

The main drawback, I think, is that it lacks any personality. The advantage of using the handles is that every little animation becomes a source of expression. From my experience, these subtle details add up and make the final result feel much more polished even when they are not perceived individually.

Ideal for short, simple animations like button clicks or loading indicators. Use it for specific effects like retro or pixelated looks or to create deliberate contrasts in motion.

Linear interpolation can be effective when used with intention. It works well for simple, straightforward animations like button clicks or loading indicators. It can also be useful for specific styles, such as retro or pixelated looks, or to create contrast between fast and slow motions. The key is to use it selectively—mixing it with other types of interpolation, like easing, to add depth and realism. By balancing its use, you can maintain both simplicity and interest in your animations.

I think the best use case for linear interpolation is when the final piece needs to feel automatic and precise, let's say you make an ad for a machine shop or a manufacturing facility, a business where precision is something they take great pride in, you can use linear interpolations to help subconsciously communicate that idea of machinery and precision.

I don't think there is any debate here. Linear interpolation is the backbone of any animation. Asking if it is right or wrong to use is not to be debated in my opinion. You will always have to use it, whether you like it or not. Because as animators you need to see an overall course of trajectory, a path... in isolation to its final refinements. Once everything is in place, then you can ask yourself if your animation needs easing or not... And we have not even started on the distinction between temporal and spatial!

If we talk about after-effects the gateway drug is the hand-dandy F9 key that switches a keyframe to a predefined easy-ease curve. But I think it's best to not relay on it and instead get your hands dirty with the graph and really sculpt the motion until it feels right

There are many places where you can learn about animation curves and interpolation but if I were to recommend one place it would be The School of Motion.