Hey everyone,

I just won Rodney's little give away, so I'm trying to make it worth his while by becoming a more active community member.

Anyway, we are not doing enough animation as a community, or at least not sharing it enough. After all we are using ANIMATION:Master. It seems to me that part of the reason is everyone gets distracted with trying to build the perfect model and rig and then never gets around to developing their animation skills.

Therefore I propose Animation Boot Camp!

We'll develop our skills together doing basic, Short, exercises. If your new to animation this is your chance to learn with peers. If your old to animation, this is your chance to get back to basics. I'm thinking we'll start small, and then work up to more and more complex ideas, until we are all making our own feature length films , or at least we get more entries to the Animation contest out there.

So we'll start with bouncing balls. What your to for bouncing balls? Well Check this out (bottom of the page) That's Cameron Miyasaki , Pixar employee, check out how much character he squeezes out of spheres who have no limbs or faces.

Or here's my less accomplished example.

So here's a little project file that has 2 balls already rigged up and in a chor ready to go. They have 2 nulls: Null1 just controls where the base of the ball is, use that one to move the ball around. Null2 called "Squetch" lets you squash and stretch the ball, move it up the ball stretches, move it down the ball squashes. (I made this with expressions (which I don't really understand but learned from this tutorial) and then did a little null manipulater for it (you can use the pose slider if you prefer)) Or make your own, I'm just trying to make it easy.


So the assignment:
Excercise A: drop both balls onto the screen, make one super rubbery, make the other heavy like a canonball. Let them bounce to a stand still.

Excercise B: bounce the balls across the screen, like they're going somewhere. Make them of different material's

Excercise C, extra credit: try and give the balls different personality and have them have an interaction. Throw in props if you want. Keep this short! 200 frames max.

A and B you should be able to do in one sitting. When your done post it in this thread and we'll critique each other.

The trick to this kind of thing is start small and build up your skill level, instead of starting a huge epic project right away.

DUE DATE: Wed Jan 5 before you go to bed. Let's have a due date so we won't procrastinate and put it off. Then we'll critique on Thursday. (If your are reading this thread after the due date and want to try it, post your excercise in a new thread so it can get critiqued)

Remember to think about:
Timing
Ease In and Out (or Slow In and Out)
Arcs
Anticipation
Exaggeration
Squash and Stretch


Use your curve editors. If you have any questions, or are having trouble, post in this thread and the forum will help. Then on Thursday we'll all critique each other and hopefully improve.

Please keep the files small!!! We have some none broadband members (like me) and I usually ignore anything over 1MB, and this excercise should be pretty small.

There's some bouncy sounds in the project, use 'em if you want but remember this is about animation skills.

If there's interest in this we'll keep going. Getting to more elaborate things: juice boxes, bipeds doing simple stuff, lip synch work, huge elaborate battle scenes, giant group projects, the skies the limit.

If there's no interst, well it'll die here.


Get to work! And have fun.

-Alonso

Hot damn, Alonso! Great idea!

I'll give it a go. Should be interesting to see what people can come up with.

Steve P.

Yeah! Awesome idea!

Sounds fun and I hope I get some time for it. One question: Why the Student forum? I would never have read this if you had not linked from a different thread.

So we just post it here? I love this idea. You exactly described my animation situation.

Yay, people!

I figured the student forum was most appropriate since it's about learning and improving, and it wouldn't get lost as quick.

Timewise it shouldn't take to long, you could probably bust something out quick in 1/2 hour per excercise, maybe less if you have some experience.

Go ahead and post your results in this thread Kyle, that way we can keep them all together. Post in progress work too if your looking for critiques or advice.

GO GO GO

-Alonso

Great Idea Alonso
Just downloaded the project, im workin on some squash and stretches now

I'm working, too. I've never done squash and stretch. How did I miss it? I think someone's trying to foil me...

I'm working like crazy. Thanks Alonso, I was so bored and had a need for this lesson. Let boot camp carry on!

Working on it right now, too! Great idea!

DONE! I've been working on it since I saw this post! Exercise C is a little bit fast, so you may have to go frame by frame, because I was trying to keep it in your time range. In fact, I want you to go frame by frame after you wtach it so you can tell what's going on.

Right-click this link and save target, as it's on angelfire:

BallExercisesA-C

(this is a zip folder that contains .MOVs of Exercises A, B, and C)


Thanks for this boot camp idea. I haven't animated in awhile and I feel that this is really helping me out.

Haha thats kinda scary it was like you were talking exactly to me, Mr procrastinator with the exact situation you showed...... im getting to it.

lol

Hey Kyle, your animations turned out great. I think you could have had a little more squash and streth in there, or made it last loner. And C was a little quick. But they were great.

Now this is going to be awsome! Im gonna follow this till the end . Going to do the exercises when I get up in the morning. Ta-TA

Paul

Hey Kyle, I couldn't get it, I think you hit your bandwidth limit. I have a little bit of space, do you want to email it to me and I could throw it up on my site for a while? (alonso_soriano AT msn.com (but in regular email shape obviously)

The 200 frames is pretty short, but really just to try and protect people from getting carried away and getting in over their head. If you guys want to keep going by all means TALLY HO!

Glad everyone's so excited!


-Alonso

I couldnt view your animation Kyle, something about angelfire not letting be linked to? Anyways this is an awesome Idea i'm starting on it tommorow when i'v have some rest

Guys I got 1 gig webspace if anyone needs it to post their exercises up on. Whoever needs it let me know. I'll make you all acounts and you can upload to the server. Btw if you dont have AIM or Yahoo messenger get it if you plan on using the space im gonna give you so I can show you how to set it up because im not going to be doing email to let anyone know how to set it up (it takes too long to explain threw email ). But if anyone needs the space just tell me on here your aim or yahoo name and Ill give you the information on how to upload it PEACE Y

Paul

Well I decided to combine A and B (or you might like to think I skipped A and went onto B ) In any case I'm a pretty slow animator and don't have time to do all the exercised so my efforts at B can be found here:

Exercise B(187kb DivX)

Cheers

Here is my combination of A and C sort of. If I get enough time I may do another for C and B.

Bounce

Any areas that need fixed/improved?

Hutch yours made me crack up lol. Nice one.

Ok heres exercise A & B. I'll be doing C later.

Exercise A
Exercise B


Let me know what should be worked on.
Thanks

Paul

I'm having trouble with the sound effects. After importing them into the project, I drag and drop them onto the choreography action, but sometimes I can hear the sound, and sometimes not.

Also, I would like to have the small boing sound repeat twice because the ball bounces three times, but I can only get it to sound once. How do you use the same sound more than once in a choreography?

Man, I'm having trouble with this... It's pretty bad when you can't bounce a ball!

I think you may have to deselect the first instance of a sound before dropping the second one on the cho. After you drop it on you can select its shortcut in the PWS to move it in the timeline window where you want it.

I sent it to you Alonso! Thanks!

Super idea, Alonso - how many times have we heard this suggestion and not carried through. And handing us a ready-to-go project file is too good to pass up!

It took me a minute to figure out I should key the Squetch bone rather than using the Squetch slider directly.

So, catching up:

Alonso - your sample was really nice, loved the M.C. Escher twist ending.

Kyle - couldn't download yours?

David - could you post in an alternate format? I like to stay away from Divx, sorry.

Hutch - nice job. The black ball comes down a bit fast and maybe squashes too much for contrast with the red ball. The red ball's bounce is too linear, it should hang more at the top. And maybe when it scurries away at the end, the anticipation stretch should go right before he bounces left?

Paul: "A" looks good, you also could work on getting the vertical motion less linear. "B" is fun. But did you want the small ball to flatten itself, or just when the big ball smashes it?

And now, my turn, a bit of A B and C:

http://www.digins.com/jack/balljcm.mpg

So come on, get even and tell me what it needs!

Paul, on Animation B, I noticed that the motion blur trails look like they're strobing. I wonder if the settings need adjustment so they look smoother? I haven't used motion blur yet, so I'm not sure what would need changing.

Also, the grainy material used in B can cause trouble in an animation because they tend to jitter. Using Multi-Pass can help with that sometimes. Maybe increasing the scale of the material would help.

I like the action - I didn't think of anything that creative!

David - The way the small ball bounces up against the large one and the large ball moves just a little bit is good because it helps show the weight of the large ball.

Interesting replies -- I like the bootcamp concept (as a newbie, even just watching the posts I'm learning)
For follow-on exercises: may want to consider comparing notes/techniques on:
1) having the cannonball/heavy-ball impact the stage and crack-up (either the stage or the ball)
2) having the cannonball drop/break right through the stage (with dust cloud for bonus points)
just some suggestions
Dave

Ok I finished excersize A, here it is......I love this boot camp idea its going to be so fun!

ExcersizeA

Hey everybody,

So, not that I'm an expert, but here's some things I've learned
about animating bouncing balls.

Forces and Timing: a bouncing ball is all about forces. You have the
momentum of the ball coming down and bouncing back up. As the ball
is on it's up bounce the momentum is fighting against gravity, until
gravity finally takes over and starts pulling it back down, faster
and faster. You show these forces by the timing. The ball moves the
furthest from frame to frame when it is near the ground (when
gravity is pulling on it the most, or it's momentum is strongest).
At the peak of it's arc the ball moves only a little from frame to
frame as slowly one force overtakes the other.

Squash and Stretch: In real life we expect something to get fatter
when it gets shorter, because it must maintain the same amount of
mass. In 3D the computer has no problem letting you shorten
something without changing it's width, which looks wrong to us.
On a bounce, the ball will be most spherical at the top of the arc,
this is the point where the different forces have the least amount
of influence. As it travels up or down those forces start pulling it
longer. When it hits the ground that downward force has to go
somewhere so it goes outward, making the ball squash out. Remember
that animation is about exageration, so you can get away with more
squash and stretch then you think if you only do it for a frame or
two. In the Animator's Survival Kit Mr. Williams talks about
contrasting shapes, and here's your chance to use it: when the ball
is about to hit the ground it will be at it's most stretched out, if
the very next frame has the ball at it's most squashed out then you
will really feel it's rubberiness.

Remeber animation is about Exageration.

A word about critiqueing. The purpose of critiqueing is to help the
animator see where they could improve their animation. Specifics are
helpful (i.e. your arcs seem a little linear), generalizations are
not very helpful(i.e. I like it, or you suck). When I critique I try
and identify things I see that if changed would improve the piece,
as well as things in the piece that are working well so that the
animator doens't feel totally attacked.

Also, you can learn a lot (especially on these kinds of excercises
where we are all doing really similar stuff) by reading critiques of
other people's stuff, and seeing if you agree. And you learn a lot
critiqueing other people's stuff also, I've learned as much
critiqueing as I have animating myself. You don't have to be an
expert to critique, just have to have eyes and fingers (to type
with)

and so, here's some critiques on what's been done so far. Remember
it's just my opinion and not neccessarily right.

Starwarsguy:
You can get StarwarsGuy's excercises here.
StarWarsGuy Bounce Zipped (about 542K)
A tip for size, since these are just excercises, render at 320x240,
and AVI's tend to be smaller than quicktime, and can usually still
play on a quicktime player.
A: Both balls seem to feel a little uniform in timing, like the up
down time on the ground and time at the peak are all equal, try
mixing it up to better sell their weight. Your squash isn't reading
well because I'm feeling like it's just scaling down in Y without
correspondingly getting fatter in x and z. After the 2nd bounce the
remaining bounces feel a little forced, like they happen to quick,
this is just a practice thing to find the right amount of time to
have. I do feel the different materials of the balls, the green does
feel more airy then the red.
B:This one also the timing is to even, it shows up better here. The
balls are going up and down at the same rate, I don't feel the pull
of gravity fighting the momentum. The red one's does feel right in
the decreasing of height though, pretty believable that someone just
rolled it out.
C:This ones really great, really fun! The interaction is good, I can
start feeling the personalities. You might try stretching them a
little so that you can lean them and that way give an impression of
where their attention is (it worked for me in the example I gave in
the beginning of this thread). Even though it's all very fast, it
all works well in the time. The larger ball rolls to the middle and
waits, why doesn't he head the directly, what's the motivation? When
the little one gets hopping mad, you could try anticipating those
hops with slight squashes beforehand, so that we feel the build up
of energy to get it off the ground. I'm not sure if you are doing it
on purpose, or if it is just spline in your channels but the slight
follow through on a lot of their rolls is good. (that they don't
just stop, but overshoot and come back) you could also get a similar
feeling if you eased into their stop points (slowed down as they got
to where they're going to stop.) Great Job!

Higgins:
Excellent job! The purple and yellow are definetly different
materials, and the timing is pretty good. Suggestions; try going to
your max squash the first frame you hit the ground, with the squash
a little later like it is now the ball feels not quite as rigid,
making the high bounces a little less believable because the energy
would be lost in the slow shape changes. You could also get a little
closer to sphere shaped at the peaks of your arcs. All the bounces
look good, except the 1st one after hitting the purple, looks a
little stunted. And it feels like there would be a little more
sideways momentum after hitting the purple. Great effort though, and
these are just my opinions, not necessariyl correct.

Hutch: Good use of sound effect. But I turn off the sound effects to
better concentrate on animation ;P The height/timing is good on the
red one but it's squash and stretch feels off: it's squashing in the
air which is a horizontal energy thing, but it's in the air so it
should have stretch vertical energy. The black one's impact and
blorb back up are brilliant, did you use a distortion box to get
that effect. We can feel the energy moving back up through it, great
job! The getting flung away on the red isn't reading clear. If the
red is getting flung it should get compressed for a second from the
force coming up through it, and then flung away. (probably the
energy would hit right at the blacks deepest squash) If reads alive
(that stretch kind of looks like a surprise reaction) and leaps away
in fright you need to warn the audience ahead of time, for example
having red look around after it's landed but before black hits.
Strong showing all together.

Paul:
A: Beware of motion blur. It can help give that extra zing to a
piece, but it can also hide flaws (which you usually want to hide)
which works against you on an excercise. Your really close on the
purple, it just bounces a little to much, it should die out a little
sooner. Yellow dies out well. Good job, really nearly perfect.
B: That's a wild texture! Fun interaction. That squash is still
buggin me, where does all the mass go, kind of looks like they are
sinking into the ground. All those double images are a little
distracting but it looks like you did a good job using the squash to
build up energy and propel them around. What you could add on top of
that is using stretch to have them trying to hold the air they've
caught.

Great effort so far everyone! Now try your hand at critiqueing,
we're a community after all, and if you want critiques it's only
right that you give them as well (besides you'll learn). And try
incorporating some of the stuff that's been said (maybe try a new
Excercise C or something).

And thanks to those of you who've already put their 2 cents in. And thanks everyone for getting excited.

-Alonso

Hey Cindy(PixelDust) don't get to caught up with the sound, animating's the important part. I usually watch animation's with the sound off anyway. Thanks for putting out some crits.

Jack(Aminator), thanks for contributing, I'll bust out a crit soon as I can.

Paul, in the rendering options I think there's one for motion blur, which will up your render time, but not as much as multipass will.

Hey David(ZMAN), don't just watch, roll up your sleeves and get busy

Get a crit for you soon Markus

And then maybe I'll get to making my own excercises ;p
-Alonso

Thanks, Alonso! I think you're the perfect person to run this boot camp!

Alright guys here is exercise c. I didn't add any sound like the otherones but that dosn't matter for this exercise. Here's the link let me know how it is:

Exercise C

actually,

I just tried exercise c on my friends computer and the sound worked heh. Whatever if you get sound thats cool if not thats cool too.

LOL! That made me smile, but it looks like he floats into the bucket at the beginning.

Here's my attempt. I tried to make it look as realistic as possible while applying squash and stretch principles.

click here

Great idea Alonso! Maybe this is something you could do every few months or so for each new batch of new users.

This is such a classic exercise, i really enjoyed doing it. I'm afraid I spent much more than 20 minute experimenting with the possiblities.

Here's my stab. I may have crossed the line on "jiggle" but it was fun.

OK - I've re-posted mine in .mov format for those who don't like DivX:

Exercise B (106kb .mov)

Cheers

Nima and Rob, great job!

Nima: YOurs felt very real. I watched it over and over again.

Robcat: I love the personality of the little ball!

Robocat, nice animation though I have a couple of issues with it:

1. I don't know why the little ball bounced - then bounced higher then hung in mid air! It was animated fine - I just don't know why it did it!

2. Why did the little ball move? I didn't get the impression that it looked up or saw the big ball coming!

I loved the use of the camera movement to give the feeling of weight to the big ball as well as the squash/stretch of the little ball after the big balls impact. A great lesson in secondary actions there.

Cheers

Nima

You animated the little red ball very well. The black ball feels like it has weight but bounces like it was dropped on a soft/spongey floor. For the weight you have given it, its bounce amplitude will be very short.

Cheers

Hutch,

Red ball was animated nicely but I think its missing the last boink sound effect.

Large ball has weight but for the amount off squash you gave it, it feels to me like it should have bounced a little faster with a quicker shape recovery. If it was the mass of say a heavy jelly ball then the bounce would have worked if you added more stretch and squash jiggle.

The secondary stretch/sqaush of the red ball is great as is the jump off screen.

Cheers

Jack:
The big one looks great, like it's a water baloon. I like how you used the stretch to make the rolling off screen obvious. The little one needs a little more bounce, or it needs to come in faster because it's heavy. Shouldn't the camera shake come at the first impact to increase the feeling of weight, instead of on the 1st bounce?

Mark:
The yellow one has the right amount of decrease in the height of it's bounces. Try putting more squash into it to match the amount of stretch that it has. It's bouncing to a stop is perfect. You might try playing with the ease at the top of the arc, where the forces change. The blue one needs to come in faster to sell it's weight, but it's finishing bounces work well for a heavy weight.

Paul:
Fun! The squash and stretch doesn't seemed consistent with their movements. Sometimes the green is squashing as it flies through the air, and I'm not sure why. Also the mauve one squashes in mid air right before it hits the bucket. It looks like your channels are set to spline, things are overshooting, the most obvious place is right before the mauve one crushes the bucket, the bucket floats up. It's a fun little piece, with a little tightening up it'll be great.

Nima:
Yours is perfect. I can't quite tell if you are using squash and stretch, or if you are letting motion blur do it for you. (if you are letting motion blur do it for you, try it without to build up your strength) Great ease at the top of the arcs, great decrease in height of bounces.

Robcat:
Fabulous job, love the wobelyness. Starting to see some real character in that little yellow one. And great job putting the wobble in the yellow when the mauve hits. I see nowhere to improve.

-Alonso

Finally got mine done. I still couldn't get the sound to work right

Exercise A
Exercise B
Exercise C

Hi Cindy,

Exercise A. I feel the balls stopped too abruptly given the speed and amount of squash/stretch

Exercise B. Looks great but they both seem like they have the same weight.

Exercise C. Personally it would have been better if the small ball rolled in rather than just slide/skidded in. Similarly when the large ball started menacing the small ball a slight roll back rather than slide would have been better. The jump off screen by the little ball has no anticipation. He just lifts off without any squash and the stretch, once he is airbourne, is not in the same plane as the apparent movement.

Cheers