Might as well start with the basics. a simple ball bounce that really isnt that simple.
looking forward to comments.

I think you will have to download it to loop it.


I see there are threads already setup, I will post the rest of the animations there.

over and out

Good start. The timing looks right. The squetch is pretty good. It's squashing well.

At the top of the arc generally the ball should return to a nuetral shape (round not stretched) because that's where the up energy and the downward pull are canceling each other out, so the shape isn't being pulled. So the longest stretch shape is right before it hits the ground, and in the middle on the way back up. You might also get the stretch in their faster on the way up.

Funny how complicated a simple ball bounce is isn't it.

Keep going. Try bouncing it across the screen, then you have to start worrying about arcs (well more arcs at least)

-Alonso

Thanks for the input Alonso!


I did a quick simple double bounce here, really quick. hopefully applying some of your input.

That looks really nice. See I learned something, I keep preaching have your axis of squetch along your path, but I haven't really been doing it, here you've done it flat out and I really like how it looks.

One animator's trick you might try is around your impacts. It's a common trick to have the frame right before impact the stretchiest, and just barely touching the ground, then the next frame is full impact all squished and then when the ball gets going again it's away from the ground (so not just a mirror of the before impact frame, but actually away from the ground a bit) but that's just a trick and not necessary.

Your not conserving your mass in your squetch, the ball is staying about the same width wether it gets longer or shorter, it should skinny up when it stretches, and get really wide as it squashes. (Kind of tricky to set up I know, I've given up fancy ways and just set up a pose slider and do it manually)

The movement looks right overall, but it's a little abrupt starting and stopping. If the ball is alive you could try to put some thinking in, and some anticipation for the jump, and some follow through afterwards. If the ball is not alive the easiest thing would be to have the hopping start and stop off screen (so either zoom in, or add more bounces)

Good work. Lets see some tail action.

-Alonso

I now see what you guys are talking about with the stretch being in the axis of the movement. Thanks

Wow, thanks Alonso!

here is my first attempt at a ball with a tail. Im not sure if I like the way i rigged it so pick away.

I will add squash and stretch to the head and hat put have him hit a ball and bounce back for the final. a sort of work in progress.

I might have to make a new rig quick over the weekend

That is a cute little animation Kuep. It looks pretty realistic. The things that stick out to me is that the tail kind of flips around strangely before the little guy is about to take off. I assume that he has a cat like tail that is capable of moving on its own, but it doesn't quite move in a realistic way. Maybe it's related to your rig, as you mentioned. His tail seems to follow behind quite nicely when he takes off, but near the end it kind of lifts up a bit, not quite following the motion of the body. All in all, a nice start.

Paula

Thanks for the input Paula, I see you are a fellow Canadian. How is it going out there in BC?

That is a good point. I will tone down the tail and post it again.

Cute looking little guy with the hat. I think because he's floating it's a little hard to read exactly what's going on. (floating is really tricky)
When it sinks, the tail seems to respond correctly, but it stays bent near the base, not sure why anatomically. When it rears back the tail kind of curls up with it, if it's cat like they tend to pull them way back, starting at the base, if it's a more passive tail it should be drug along more like a streamer. When it zooms off it seems correct, but at the bottom of the arc the tail should swing lower than the ball did.

This is a hard excercise your attempting because the object doesn't really have anything to reference against. You might try using this same model hopping from one horizontal cylinder to another (like limbs in a tree) or something, so the ball's physical motion would be more defined and it would be more easy to read what indirect forces are acting on the tail, and what forces the tail is exerting itself.

Can't wait to see what kind of personality you can bring out in this ball.

-Alonso

Things are good in BC, Kuep. I had noticed that you were from Saskatewan. My husband is from there. Good luck with your studio. It would be nice to see a success story from that area!

What I think is missing is some swimming like action of the tail. That is what strikes me is how does this tail move the character? I like the head turn towards tha camera tha's a nice touch. and the character is original.

That's a fun looking bounce.

Since "the bouncing ball" exercise is a lot about arcs I tracked it with a marker to highlight them.

Two things stand out... the ball is pretty much on a straight line much of the time and it is taking twice as long to rise as to fall.

As with all ballistic objects the classic bouncing ball path will be a parabola which is always curved. I prefer to fine tune paths like these in the curve editor by tweaking the biases rather than adding more keyframes.

I as I followed the ball along the marks I noticed that the axis of the stretch was pointing in the direction it should if it were on a parabola; the path just wasn't taking it that way.

There may be cartoon physics reasons to have the rise and fall so different, but in an exercise like this there's no visible motivating circumstance for it so we're left wondering "hmmm... does he know it's doing that?";) Again the curve editor is my preferred place to tweak things like that.

The bouncing ball is a great exercise, i'm glad you're giving it a work out.

Ok I heard amarillospider mention tracking the arcs witha marker on the screen. But would this damage the screen even over repeated times? I see how this would help but I really like this monitor and do not want to damage it

Thanks for the input Robcat! So much to learn and so little time!!

I only used 3 keys and agree about adjusting those instead of adding more keys. I also peak the keys to get separate controls of the keys but didn't in these animations.
I will look at the animation again and again till i get it right.

I must apologize for some of the animating I am doing. I only put in about 10 min on the double bounce and about a 1 hour on the ball with a tail.
We are busy getting the material ready to do a pitch on a series idea of ours to compete for some cash at a film festival. First we have to wow them with our one sheet before we are accepted. (I will do a separate post if we do get in)




speed animating has a price I guess. LOL!

Mark, I have heard of people putting saran wrap on their screen and writing on that with a felt pen... or even using post-it notes. I found a little application (I think in this forum) that allows you to draw on the screen. I've used it a little bit and it seems to work quite nicely. I can get you the url if you like (it's at home so I would have to post it tonight).

Yeah I was concerned too. So far it doesn't seem to be affecting the anti-reflective coating.

First, don't do it on an LCD monitor. AFAIK, you can only use dry erase markers on a glass CRT screen. On the other hand I've heard of people cutting a sheet of plexiglas to cover their LCD screen and marking on that.

second, don't use a paper towel to wipe off the dry erase. get one of those micro-fiber cloths sold for cleaning eyeglasses. Paper towels will abrade your monitor.

I've tried software solutions that can draw on the screen and I'd like to see something like that built into A:M, but for "quick", dry erase markers are real handy.

Ok, here is a quick dropping juice box animation. I thought I would try something else.

Looks really great. Can you do it without camera movement? It's too distracting I can't really critique. Thank You But from what I can tell it looks really good! I like how you are not afraid to exaggerate the poses

Kuep, that juice box looks good. I like the strong camera angles. It looks like when it actually hits the ground it is in nuetral state, it should be at the most stretched out state because it's been falling. Try spacing out the squash a little longer, it looks good, scrubbed through but at full speed it goes a little to fast. I really like the follow through on the squash with the rotating around, and then continued into the straw.

Using the channels is a really good way to set animation and have a lot of control. But if you do it to much then if you need to change something then putting in any other keyframes will warp the whole animation. But it's a strong tool that I personally don't use enough.

Drawing on your screen with a dry erase marker I think can damage anti reflictivity coatings eventually, but I've read posts of a lot of animator's who intentionally removed this (with toothpaste) so they could draw on the screen with a dry erase. It's a good trick to know about, but covering your screen in cerran wrap will give you the same results without damaging anything.

-Alonso

i touched up the box a bit and changed the angle of camera for pixar.

I will try to finish the final for boot camp 1 one since time is running out.

The reaction to the landing looks better. It still looks like the box is in neutral when it's hitting the ground (I can tell because the sides are straight instead of sucked in as it's falling)

-Alonso

Thanks for fixing the camera Kuep. Wow, that's totally awesome! I love how smooth it is without being spliney/watery. The only thing that's bugging me is that the whole thing seems to go back to neutral on the very last pose-makes it look stiff. Your doing a great job with these exercises, keep it up!

I see what you mean about the box Alonso! Note taken.


thanks Pixar, I made the box go back to its original state on purpose.

When you go through frame by frame the box goes to natural state one frame before hitting it should stay stretched tell the frame after the hit. Then to natural (Maybe) then squash this is already stated but I that another explanation might help make this clear. Good work! keep it up! TWO is coming SOON

here is my final for the first camp. pick away and then I can move on.

Eek, suicidal tadpole!

Okay, the ball drops then raises in anticipation. Try making the tail follow through on that dropping action while the ball is starting upwards into the anticipation. Near the top of the antic then you can bring the tail up into an antic pose (probably need to lengthen the time on your antic to have time for the tail to finish)

Right now the ball is kind of slamming it's head forward and then going, if you want a more animal look I would suggest going up and forward (leading with the top the whole time instead of leading with the "face" and then leading with the top) Either way the tail could follow a little more. Here at the bottom of the arc I see the tail following along. That's perfect! But do that a whole lot more, and in other places too! If the ball went up first the tail would follow along behind. As it is I feel like the tail should have a little up in it's following of the ball (about where the ball starts going forward from swinging downward that change should result in an upward kink in the wave of energy traveling down the tail.

After the bottom of the arc the tail starts raising again. Doesn't quite make sense. If it's following along, gravity would be pulling it down. If the ball is trying to raise the tail then I don't think it could get more than horizontal because of the speed.

When the ball hits your getting squash before you even touch the large ball. Think of the tail as a beaded necklace, each sphere in the chain is traveling at the same speed as the Head. So when the head stops the next bead is still coming forward at the same speed until it runs into something, either the head or the heavy ball. In other words the tail needs to pile up against the big ball more. Your tail is pretty stiff, but it's also long, so at least the end of it will collapse into the ball. And you've shown us that it's looser in how it's bending when it falls to the ground.

The tail flapping down onto the ground is good (need to do that flapping into the ball before though) The ball is drifting up, open up your channels and stop the float.

-Alonso

Hi Guys,

been busy, here is a really quick balance animation. I had my video camera torn apart so i have to get it back together so i can make a video reference.

this was only 45 minutes and i was just playing around with the idea so its really rough and not even close to being done but i figured i better post something so you dont forget about me. LOL

I wont be able to much more with boot camp except for the final because time is running out.

will have something more in a couple days

here a update on the green guy, pick away and then i can do some work on him and lot of work he needs.

Overall it works quite well and does its job.

The flat-footed bent-leg push off by the left leg is weak. straighten the leg out and push off with the toe. Right now the toe is actually leaving the ground before the heel does. Ouch.

The various twitches and flails he does while balancing work well, except around 1:19-2:12 when his hips seem to lock in one place, unaffected by the body masses moving around it. Some action-reaction movement there would probably help.

there are probably opprtunites for more overlapping motion, but hard to pinpoint it without trying it myself.

His final stand seems too quick and stops suddenly.

But overall a fine effort, it looks quite good!

thanks for the great input. good eye, the point were the hips are dead is because i did a hold there and never did anything with it. I see what you mean about the toe.
I will stretch out the end and see how it looks.

I didnt want to overlap to much till i got some feedback, i didnt set my video camera so i am just going off my own acting. i think i will keep doing that on this animation.