I decided to start my own thread for my bootcamp exercises. Here is Boot Camp 1c: I will incorporate the tail (as per ultimate boot camp) in the next pass.

the overall motion of the green ball might be a bit too slow in the air to be a jump, but the main poses and squash and stretch timing is just about right...
and the black ball...how come it runs over the green ball at one speed than finishes its action afterwards to a faster one....to animate this I would have set an approximate length for the animation and animated the black ball coming across at the right que timing...then I would animate the green one..that way you don't need to create keyframes that you hope to have the same speed

Thanks for the comments jamagica. I agree that the black ball's speed is all off, but I animated it after and it was to hard to adjust the speed and synch it up again with the little one. Great suggestion to animate the big one first. Next time!

Very Well done Paula!
The green ones bounce is very good, the flattened shape is excellent, looks like a deflated balloon, not just a shrunk down sphere. Nice squash and stretch for the hops also, especially at the tops of the arcs. And I just noticed that extra little lift after it's been run over, perfect!

The double anticipation before the first hop is a little confusing. You might try instead an antic up(stretch) that has a slow feeling to it, then a quick down antic and up in the hop. Great job using the angle of the ball's stretch to help illustrate the arc. The first landing is good, but an alternative you might try (but don't need to) is on the first frame of contact with the floor, having the ball stretched out, and then on the very next frame squashing it, this gives more impact (if you are wanting more impact, if not what you have here is perfect.) The impact with the black ball is close but not quite. Firstly your compromising your arc, after the peak the green ball kind of hesitates so it won't get to close to the black, the arc has to be consistent as if the black ball wasn't going to be there. Next the green ball is squashing before it even hits the black ball, you need to wait until there is something for it to squash against. The stretch afterwards feels a little to long for the amount of space it's flying.

Jamiga is right in that if have an object that will not be affected by other objects, but will effect other objects you should animate it first. In a fight scene for instance I animate the punch before I animate the reaction to the punch. But in this case since you had already animated the green ball a different trick you can do is animate backwards. Start at the point where you need the black ball to be for the green one, and then go to an earlier frame and put where you want the black ball to start. The other way to make the black ball smooth is to look at the channels and make sure their smooth.

Great job, a little more polish and it will be perfect.

-Alonso

Thanks so much for the critique Alonso! I will go back and clean it up based on your comments.

Here is my attempt at cleaning 1c up. I suspect that the part where the green ball bounces off the black ball is a bit too fast, but it has been very hard to change the speed of the black ball with out re-animating the green ball.

By the way, I think that you can upload 1mb or smaller files onto the forum, so you don't need to zip your clips if you don't want to.

Good improvements. The first antic reads much more clearly. The arc after hitting the black ball looks better also.

The squash when hitting the black ball is standing out a little because there's no ease out of it, it's just one frame. I would keep it sudden like that but have maybe a 1 or 2 or 3 frames coming out of the squash shape. The black ball's movement is pretty smooth, just one little catch when the green hits it, since this is just an excercise I would just leave it and remember what you learned next time.

Looking very nice.

-Alonso

Looking Good! Just one thing, when the green ball hits the black one you should take out the contact frame amd go straight from in the air to squashed on the ball.

Thanks for the feedback Alonso and Josh! I definitely learned a lot on this exercise, especially from the critiques.

Regarding upload, Alonso if I try to upload an .avi it says invalid file type and if I render it as .mov it is too big. Am I missing something?

Paula

Hey Paula

Looks like your having some fun with these exercises too. I can't really see anything to critique that hasn't been mentioned already.

Your question about .mov files. Have you tried rendering to .tga files? thats how i'm rendering out my files then i can play around with compression settings till i get one small enough to just upload. The nice thing is you can save your imported targa files into a .mov in just a few seconds instead of rendering all the frames again.

In A:m

1. render your animation to targa in a new folder, it help to name it " Filename_00 " or the order won't be right

2. Import your targa's as an image sequence. Right click on the images folder in the PWS and click the first file then shift click the last file and import them.

3. Right click on the first image in the images folder and go to save animation as

4.adjust your compression and quality settings . Sorensen3 compression does a good job ,and name your .mov file then hit ok.

there are other option also like quicktime pro which lets you resize the resolution and play around with a lot more settings and its only $29 . this is what i've been using

Targa's are great if you have a big project because if there's a crash during rendering you don't lose everything.
And of course you can just play with the compression settings and render to mov in the first place instead of importing a series of targa.
To adjust the quality of the .mov open the little triangle by Format, then click on the word to the right of compression (default word is "Set" I think).
-Alonso

Thanks for the render info guys. I will give it a try on my next assignment.

Continuing on with level one of the Ultra Bootcamp, I did a ball with a tail moving across the screen.

Looks pretty good Paula, looks like you have the idea of it. Playing at regular speed it works, but I can see where some improvements can be made when scrolling slowly through it. When the ball stops on screen right I see that the tail is straight down as it passes directly under the ball, don't be afraid to let the bottom part of the tail drag behind more, so the base of the tail may be pointing straight down, but the rest of it will still be pointing to where it's come from (to varying degrees). Another thing I saw is that by the third swing it looks like the tip of the tail is starting to lead the swinging. Unless it's a scorpian tail the lower bits will follow the upper bits always. Remember playing as a kid with those pens at the bank that are chained to the desk, or playing with a garden hose, as you wiggle it back and forth the energy works it's way out along away from the base. Make sense? (Go get out the water hose )

Anyway this is a good start with the principles, now you just need to refine your understanding.

-Alonso

Thanks for the feedback Alonso. I see what you mean about things that can be fixed when scrubbing through. Definitely lots of areas where the lag isn't quite right. I'll give it another quick go when I get time and then move on to the bouncing ball with a tail.

Ok, I've revised the ball and tail action according to the feedback and here it is.

Very nice Paula, the only thing I can see is near the end, there's one swing that seems to stop a tiny bit short, but overall this looks really great. I think you've got it!

-Alonso

Very nice! My only crit is I think when you have the tail "up in the air" you might want to have some subtle changes it that pose. It looks a little "stuck". But that's just being "picky", "great" job.



"(I love "quotation" marks.)"

IMHO I think you got it time to go on to the next on

Thanks for the comments guys! Now on to the interaction animation to finish up level 1.

How's it coming Paula?

-Alonso

Yikes, someones keeping an eye on me! I keep watching all the new people progress and cringe at the thought of not having done anything recently. I've been working away at my animation course. I had to do a 2D flour sack jump and 3 model sheets of my character designs last week. I've never done any 2D classical animation, so it was a bit of a challenge. Thanks for keeping me going. I will try and do my final lesson 1 project this week, although I can't promise anything, as I have a 2D double take and lifting of a heavy box due soon!

I'd love to see some of the work you've been doing for your course, could you post them here?

I've tried dabbling in 2d, I learned a lot -like how much the eye will fill in for you, how big a difference between drawings you can get away with, and stuff. I'd like to try more, to learn how to make drawings of consistent size and shape so my animations don't shrink over time. I'd love to see a list of assignments you've had. (that's the way I learn on the cheap, track down syllabus for animation courses and just do the work myself)

-Alonso

Alonso,

In the course, we started with the basics of drawing and we had to do the usual "negative space", "upside down" and "contour without looking" drawing exercises. Then we went on to do gesture drawing using the Virtual Pose 2 book. Next we did character design/characterization. Here we had to design 3 characters of our own and give them a bio. Last week we worked on the principles of animation and had to do a sack jumb. This week we are getting a crash course in anatomy and are required to do a double take and lifting heavy object animation. We were also required to draw 11 pages per week with the following topics: nick-nacks around the house, clothing, gesture drawings from Virtual Pose book, kitchen and bathroom utensils, life drawing, our characters in different poses, plants, more life drawing...and I don't know what will be next week. In any case there is a lot of drawing! I've attached an example of a model sheet I produced from one of my characters. Not great, but I guess from someone who can't draw, its a start!

As far as getting your characters to look consistent in drawn animation, it's all about picking simple shapes to create your characters. Is he pear shaped, is he a zuccini shape? Is his head long and thin or short and fat? Eyes wide set and almond shaped or close together a circular? The hardest thing (which I haven't accomplished yet), is drawing them in perspective moving toward or away from you. I can post the other exercises as I finish them if you would like.

Thanks Paula

-Alonso

Hey Paula
I wanted to know if you finished the ball tail exercise. i'm about to start this exercise as well. and i wanted to see how you did it.
So any progress
Hope to hear soon from ya

Bertmac



Come give some comments to my bootcamp
Bertmac's bootcamp I probably will give some on yours

Hi Bertmac,

I've just finished my "Drawing for Animation" course, so I'm back to boot camp. I haven't done a regular bouncing ball with a tail. I'm actually working on my interaction animation with 2 balls and the one that has a tail is fat, so he doesn't move too fast. I may put together a simple bounce with a tail, but in any case I found an excellent Animation Mentor blog (Rebecca's) that has a very good example of this. You can find it at http://www.wik-id.com/reb/AM/Class1/ and go to Session 6. She's got other great examples too.

Paula

Yep She is very cool
I thought she has a job now at Disney
And she is very big in the Alias maya scene
Because she helped develop some really cool Animation tools from www.jonhandhisdog.com
Be sure to look at some blog friends from her to

Bertmac


Come give some comments to my bootcamp
Bertmac's bootcamp I probably will give some on yours

Finally, here is my "2 balls interacting" animation. Think of a fat cranky old ball being harassed. I say this because my fat cranky ball isn't exactly how I would model him, but for expediency (getting tired of animating balls for now) I used the existing ball. Anyways, let me know what you think.

Wow very original movement
with that tail-ball
looks very cool



Come give some comments to my bootcamp
Bertmac's bootcamp I probably will give some on yours

Hey Paula,

Pretty fun idea. I can see the personalities your trying to get across. Flicking away with the tail is nice. The tail coming down is pretty good. The green ball looks pretty old and tired.

You might try detaching the tail from the main body in regards to the squetch, it seems a little odd the way it floats backwards and forwards at the moment. To make the little ball feel more annoying it needs to be sped up. The little ball's movement could have more texture in the timing, so faster at the bounces and slower at the tops of the arcs. Green's hops don't really seem like they would have the power to get it off the ground, try either speeding up the return to sphere shape from squash, or not leaving the ground (kind of just scooting along.) The tail is getting to high on the ups, it's got a nice breaking of joints going through it but there isn't enough energy in the beginning to get the 2nd joint above the first. The tail flick is fun, and looks pretty good (you could make it a punchier if you wanted) but it looks odd that the tail is floating straight out after it.

Fun piece.

-Alonso

Thanks for your comments Alonso and Bertmac. Alonso, I will try and make some of the adjustments mentioned in your critique as they are very useful. I'm currently working with Mr. Ball, as I feel I need a break from bouncing balls! Thanks again!

Paula

Hi Paula,

I like the general choreography of your clip and the swat with the tail works well.

The black ball is not as effective as it could be because some fundamentals of "bouncing ball" are not consistently implemented. If you haven't read Richard Williams on bouncing ball... do it!

I've marked up a copy of your animation:

the blue circles are frames where the landing ball should be at it's most extended and contacting the ground. many times the black ball will actually start contracting before it hits.

the blue X's are frames I'd eliminate entirely, ususally because they are too close to another frame when the ball should be moving fast not slow. See note below about ball decellerating on falling.

red circles are take-off frames that should have been fully stretched frames probably in contact withthe ground since your ball is doing more of a character "jump" after each landing rather than a bounce.

the orange dots follow the path of the ball. We can see that the arcs tend to be rather un-arclike with flat sides, rises and falls that are quite different in length, and we often see that the ball is decellerating before it hits the ground, which isn't possible for a free falling object. It also shows the horizontal velocity of the ball is often changing in mid air, not characteristic of a free falling object..



the curse of animation is that even when you move on to larger scenes like this, all the small details are still there demanding to be done. it's relentless.

Wow, thanks for taking the time to do such a thorough critique Robcat. I was going to take a break from bouncing balls, but after all the good feedback on things to correct I can't let it go to waste! Back to work! Thanks again guys.

Paula

Although I plan to go back and revisit my ball interaction clip, I thought I would post my attempt at a side step since it is done.

There are several good elements here. I like the asymmetrical stance at the end. (Do that at the beginning too.) You even have an anticipation of an anticipation.

Some problems I note:

- the side to side motion is quite linear temporally, it has just tbe barest slow in/slow out at the extremes.
- it is also linear spatially, the movement from left to right is a straight line until the very end.
- the orientation of the body is rather static also, it is almost locked in place as it travels

Arc up, arc down, but dont' travel in a straight path.

a side step is a bit like a walk in that the body is falling into the next foot plant. But steady linear motion immediately says "not falling" and that is what makes this motion here look rather wieghtless.

As soon as that first foot is lifted off the ground the body will most likely accelerate (fall) until the foot is re-planted and can provide some braking force. You do show some force being applied by the foot in that it deflects the body upward, but this also turns into a straight line action.

-The trailing foot lifts off the ground only 1 frame after the leading foot lands. "Possible" but all the more unlikely that the main body could maintain such a ruler straight path at that transfer. Try it at home. You almost have to hop to make the change that fast.

- I would expect the body to overshoot much more over the landed foot to supposrt the weight while the trailing foot is being pulled over.

BTW, the overlapping action on the antenna looks quite appropriate , although you'll probably need to tweak it over after you revisit the motion of the main body.

Hey Paula, I hope you dont mind but this is going to be a super-short critique.

It looks very good. I think Robert covered most of it. I think the 'speed' of the transfer across could be a bit faster, work on that rhythm and phrasing (after Keith Lango's new phrasing VTS video that's all I can think about). Daa, Daaaa, Daa Daaaa. Well, you get the idea. Also at the end I think the "up" movement could be smoother, make that a little more gradual if you agree with me. Great job, keep on goin'!

Thanks for the comments Robcat and Pixar. Every little bit helps. I haven't watched the phrasing VTS yet. Maybe I should watch that before I finish my revisions.

Hey Paula,

I find in side stepping that usually I'll have my foot placed before I shift my body weight over it. Also if the foot is going to take that long to be firmly planted than usually the toe will be down first and the heel will lower into it. Good anticipation, good work on the antanae.

-Alonso

Ok, here is my second try at the side step (better late than never!). I tried to incorporate all the input I received. I started from scratch, rather than trying to edit the first one I did. Not sure if it is any better...

The antenna movement is really good on that second sidestep. I think that the head should dip slightly as the weight shifts from leg to leg.

I must say the overlapping action on the antenna is working quite well! A lot of people do not get that.

On the side step itself,

-I feel like the visible force of the legs is being compromised because they never straighten out at the push-offs.

-The body has just the barest hint of arc to it's motion. A good path for this motion would be to swing down on the anticipation, around and up on the step to the side, then swing down as the trailing leg is dragged over. A bit of a figure 8 motion.

- a nice polish thing would be to have the body "look" in the direction it is going rather than always staring straight at cam. People like to see 3D objects turning; just a little would really do well here.

-The feet are very flat footed, they could land heel first or toe first, but all-at-once looks very stompy.

Thanks for the comments guys. Robcat, the problem I have with arcing upward is doing it without pulling the planted foot off the ground, especially if I need to make the other leg straight when pushing off the ground. In any case, lots of great suggestions. I will try to incorporate them in my next revision. Thanks again!

Paula

Hi Paula,
I agree with all that the antenna is lookin' awesome. Not only does it overlap perfectly, but it actually 'feels' like an antenna.

It looks like I'm late to the party once again. The feet problems that Robert mentioned was something I immediately saw. And I would also like to see some more hight change on the movement (figure 8 shaped). Also I think the hips/body come too far over to the left at the very end.

Great Job!

Here is my revised side step. Thanks to all the great feedback I had a list of things I wanted to change:
- more arcs - couldn' get the figure 8 to work, but I did add more pronounced arcs
- straighten leg when lifting foot off the ground to give a sense of weight
- look in the direction of the step
- dip the head when weight shifts
- have the heal come down, and then the rest of the foot
- don't go so far over at the end of the step

Thanks again guys! Hope you see some improvements.

Paula

Hi Paula

Looks nice again.
with al the comments all ready given by the other guy's.
i don't have much to add.

maybe your straighten leg pose needs a lil hold or so to see it better
the next movie is not good or anything but i think it shows a bit what i mean

http://www.courseptr.com/downloads/movies/...06_sidestep.avi

hope that helps

Bertmac

Much improved Paula! You take critiques very well!

I'd say just work on that right foot of his. It's a little floaty, it's not really contacting the ground when it should.

Hope that helps,
Josh

Thanks for the feedback guys. Always helpful!

It's hard coming into these things so late. Not much to say. The only thing I noticed. At about frame 9 his right leg (our left) is perfectly straight, so when you look at the animation it jerks.

I would add a little more lift to his leg. It looks more of side slide than a step. But that's just my personal taste.

Sidestep2 notes

- I'd add a slight anticipation before the big move at the start

- you say you can't do the figure 8 but you can and you gotta. It's a matter of planning ahead.

- you need that figure 8 because the path you have has some very abrupt direction changes which really aren't the result of any force in the scene. he'd pretyy much ahve to bounce off something to change direction the way he does.

-the white path is a rough approximation of how it might work. you haven't had him extend his toe fully yet, so there's still room for him to go higher.

-Passing up a great opportunity for overlap on the toes. the green dashes indicate toes that should be dragging down, orange dashes show toes that should drag up. How much? I know you have an eye for it because you did a good job on the antenna drag.

Good work, I see much promise in it.