RedForty - Animated » Bounce

Arcs and Path of Action pt.1

Daniel — Wed, 14 May 2008 03:32:23 +0000

This week’s assignment is all about Tailor. w00t! My first character! We have to animted him jumping at least three times with [post=56 text="Squash and Stretch"] and [post=62 text="Overlapping Action"] with the tail.

Still not sure what I’m going to do. Stay tuned.

*edit* — Here’s the plan:

Obstacle Course Revision

Daniel — Sun, 11 May 2008 07:08:53 +0000

Per the notes I received from my last crit, I revised my Obstacle Course animation. I inserted contact frames [as spelled out on page 94 of the Animator's Survival Guide]. I also smoothed out some of the squashing/stretching and the arcs. Check it:

[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/obstaclecourse_revised_008.mov http://animation.redforty.com/am/clicktoplay.png 480 360]

The Obstacle Course pt.1

Daniel — Fri, 02 May 2008 06:02:32 +0000

[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/obstaclecourse_005.mov http://animation.redforty.com/am/clicktoplay.png 480 360]

So, here’s my obstacle course first attempt. If you read this blog, please leave a comment. Let me know what you think. I don’t care if you don’t know anything about animation – comment on it!

The hardest part about it was bouncing on multiple levels. You can’t just follow the formula of: 5 frames up, 5 frames down, next bounce is 4 frames up, 4 frames down, etc.. It’s all mixed up when you have a long fall and a short reach.

I definitely gave myself a challenge by trying to use the hinged ramp in the middle to trick the ball’s trajectory. It’s all good though. I’m learning!

It Bounces All Over

Daniel — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 01:03:53 +0000

Ok, here’s the next assignment. To bounce this ball through this obstacle course.
It’s all about squash and stretch and anticipation. Here’s my sketch for the course. Let’s see how close the final comes to looking like this.

Intro to Timing

Daniel — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 20:15:58 +0000

So here goes Week 4! No, I haven’t saved it until now. I’ve been working on it throughout the week, but this is the first instance it appears on my blog (bad blogger, bad!).

This week’s lesson is all about timing. Timing can dictate pretty much anything in animation. Most commonly: gravity. By adjusting how many frames it takes a ball to bounce, per se, we can adjust its weight. A bowling ball will obviously fall faster and bounce a LOT less than, say, a ping pong ball.

To illustrate animate the difference, this week’s assignment is to bounce in 2 balls of opposite weights. Ie, ping pong and a bowling ball, or a cannon ball and a beach ball, etc…

This is my assignment:

[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/0104_heavyandlight_004.mov http://animation.redforty.com/am/clicktoplay.png 480 360]

Bouncing Ball 04

Daniel — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 09:23:21 +0000

Ok, so I checked out the timings when the ball hits the ground. Feeling the ‘losing energy part’ I think is difficult. I can easily bend in the tangents on the upwards movement, but too much and the ball gains this weird property of being light when it rises and heavy when it falls. Is there a trick around that?

I managed to finagle it as much as possible to take in the advice. The first hit against the wall is with a little more force now (the tangent is now straight and not bent there), and I even have it lose energy in that hit as well to make up for the speed difference and to drop the ball a little lower on the rebound so it doesn’t feel so snappy after that.

So, this is the update with everyone’s advice to heart. What do you think?

[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/simpleball_04.mov http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/simpleball_04.mov 480 360]

Bouncing Ball 03

Daniel — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 07:11:20 +0000

Ok, so I took in some notes. Specifically, paying attention to the spacing as the bounce decays. It was pointed out that toward the end, I was traveling the same amount with shorter and shorter arcs. Viola! The Z keys are now done with more deliberation!

Next note was all about the rotation, to which the end solution was ‘to not focus on the rotation until the vertical bounce was right’. So, Viola! No rotation to deal with yet!

Next note was a personal observation. The whole shimole needed to be at maximum, 100 frames. *grumble* *grumble*

Here it is; Revision 03:
[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/simpleball_03.mov http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/simpleball_03.mov 480 360]

Bouncing Ball 02

Daniel — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 07:38:17 +0000

Ok, so after studying the reference footage for a while, I now know that it would be better to drop the ball from a lower height. Basically, it keeps bouncing loooong after 100 frames…

But, this is what I got out of it:

[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/simpleball_02.mov http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/simpleball_02.mov 480 360]

A Real Basket Ball is Really Bouncy

Daniel — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 06:40:06 +0000

So, I animated a ball from memory. It felt “ok”, but not really.

Today during my lunch hour, I went and picked up a new basketball. This is me and my friend filming it:

[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/ballstraightbounce_01.mov http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/ballstraightbounce_01.mov 320 240]

[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/ballagainstwall_01.mov http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/ballagainstwall_01.mov 320 240]

Bouncing Ball 01

Daniel — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:34:35 +0000

[qt:http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/simpleball_01.mov http://animation.redforty.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/simpleball_01.jpg 480 360]
Lol, it’s 3am here and I’m soooo tired. But, yet, excited enough to watch the lecture and mess around with the ball.
No, I didn’t thumbnail. I didn’t block it out. I just starting animating. (Bad, animator!)
But, I figured I’ve got thousands of bad animations in me. I might as well get them out now

This is not a serious upload! But if you want to crit, they are always welcome!