Notational Animating: An Interactive Approach to Creating and Editing Animation Keyframes

1University of Waterloo, 2Adobe Research,
CHI 2026

Notational Animating is an interactive approach to create and edit animation keyframes by sketching notations over static drawings.

Abstract

We introduce the concept of notational animating, an interaction paradigm for animation authoring where users sketch high-level notations over static drawings to indicate intended motions, which are then interpreted by automatic methods (e.g., GenAI models) to generate animation keyframes. Sketched notations have long served as cognitive instruments for animators, capturing forces, poses, dynamics, paths, and other animation features. However, such notations are often context-dependent, non-categorical, ambiguous, and composable based on our analysis of real-world animator-produced sketches. To facilitate interpretation, we first formalize these notations into a structured animation representation (i.e., source, path, and target). We then built an animation authoring system that translates high-level notations into the formalized intended animation, provides dynamic UI widgets for fine-grained parameter control, and establishes a closed feedback loop to resolve ambiguity. Finally, through a preliminary study with animators, we assess the usability of notational animating, reflect its affordance, and identify its contexts of use.

Video (3min)

More Results and Demos

Methodology

The free-form sketched notations are inherently ambiguous, to interpret them systematically and provide users with structured feedback, we first formalize the sketched notations into a structured animation representation. The formalization is informed by content analysis of real-world sketches, see Content Analysis Collection section for more details.

Methodology

With the formalized representation, we leverage the VLM to interpret the sketched notations and generate animation keyframes.

Methodology

Content Analysis (Real-World Sketches Collection)

Explore real-world animation notations from our analysis. Filter by category and subcategory.

BibTeX


        @inproceedings{shi2026notational_animating,
          author = {Shi, Xinyu and Wei, Li-Yi and Zhao, Nanxuan and Zhao, Jian and Kazi, Rubaiat Habib},
          title = {Notational Animating: An Interactive Approach to Creating and Editing Animation Keyframes},
          year = {2026},
          isbn = {979-8-4007-2278-3/2026/04},
          publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
          address = {New York, NY, USA},
          url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3790707},
          doi = {10.1145/3772318.3790707},
          booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems},
          numpages = {29},
          location = {Barcelona, Spain},
          series = {CHI '26}
        }