Animation Timing Sheet Calculator

Frames per Beat is Frame Rate divided by beats-per-second, and beats-per-second rises as Tempo (BPM) rises -- a faster tempo packs more beats into the same minute, so each individual beat occupies fewer seconds, and therefore fewer frames at a fixed Frame Rate. At 120 BPM and 24 fps a beat lasts 12 frames, but at 240 BPM the same frame rate only fits 6 frames into a beat, because the beat itself is passing twice as fast.

Frames per Beat is calculated purely from Frame Rate and Tempo (BPM) -- it describes how long a single beat lasts, independent of how many beats you're grouping into one action. Beats per Action only enters the separate Frames per Action calculation, which multiplies the already-fixed Frames per Beat by however many beats you've assigned to one gesture. Changing Beats per Action changes how long an action takes, not how long any individual beat is.

Both apply standard animation conventions on top of Frames per Beat: Walk Cycle assumes a full walk cycle spans roughly 2 beats, so it doubles Frames per Beat, while Run Cycle assumes a run cycle compresses into roughly 1 beat, so it matches Frames per Beat directly. These are common starting assumptions for rhythmic character animation, not universal rules -- a particular character's gait or a stylized run may need a different beat count than the default convention here.

Frames per Beat scales proportionally with Frame Rate and inversely with Tempo (BPM), so doubling Frame Rate while also doubling Tempo (BPM) leaves Frames per Beat unchanged -- the two effects cancel out. This matters when retiming an animation for a different playback frame rate: if you also intend to speed up the underlying tempo by the same factor, the frame-count grid you built at the original settings stays valid.