How do animations/keyframes even work?

[HuehCentral / NotMichael]

Hey everyone. I'm not the best at blender so I need a bit of help. How do animations even WORK? I have a rigged model, yet i'm not sure how to do keyframe stuff. Thanks!

[The Renderer]

In general you go to a certain frame, then make changes the way you want them to be and then you "fix" them at that frame (making it a "key" frame). Keep doing that for other frames. Blender then interpolates inbetween those fixed frames, using different methods (linearly, splines, ...).

I know, that is only a very rough answer, but so was your question. Be more specific or maybe watch a few YouTube videos about it.

[*P0P$*FR3$H3NM3Y3R*]

In classical animation you would kinda refer to it as 'Pose to Pose' animation. Basicly you insert a keyframe for the location, rotation and eventually scale at key points in your animation and the software will automaticly interpolate the values in between.
In blender you have alot of control over all these values and you can basicly animate/ keyframe almost all sliders, material values, node settings and whatnot. Basicly almost all sliders you find in the UI can be keyframed and manipulated...not only the 3d Objects itself but also their properties.

I agree with The Renderer. Watch some basic animation tutorial on the youtube to get an idea of the concept. It's actually not very hard technicly. Just hover anything and hit the I key to insert a keyframe.

Something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp6kCe5Kmf4