I've been having a problem with the timing in my animations so I decided to go back to the basics. While I'm not really following the boot camp (I'm more following some animation books I have) I'm basically doing the same sort of thing.

I did this bouncing ball last night, now I think there's something wrong that I can't put my finger on, so if you guys could help me out that would be great!

Regular - http://www.avituchman.com/animation/bounci...no%20squash.mov
Motion Blur (who doesn't love motion blur?) - http://www.avituchman.com/animation/bounci...tion%20blur.mov

Woohoo! Lots of new people in the student forum! (who are pushing my thread to page 2 and making me feel lazy ). Welcome to the club Avi! I think you got it down very well. The first bounce is excellent. Be very careful and check your graph editor (I'm still stuck in the world of Lightwave, is that what we call it in A;M too?) on the last few though, it looks like the computer is having great fun making it floaty (especially on the way down). Great job, looking forward to seeing more from you!

It really looks like a fine bounce.

As I count from frame 0, I see that the falling motion from frame 5-6 is actually less than from frame 4-5. i would expect 5-6 to be more as the ball is accelerating, and yet... the effect is not bad at all. likewise for the later bounces.

The lack of a visible ground plane does make it hard to judge bounces.

I would go on to add horizontal travel to the ball as your next exercise. Don't worry about squash yet.

Good work!

Thanks Pixar! Yup, that's what happens when I get lazy...The first two bounces were frame by frame. Back to the drawing board...Anyhow, I just finished a bouncing ball with squash and stretch, which looks a bit better (and all frame by frame! No lazyness!)

http://www.avituchman.com/animation/bounci...ll%20squash.mov

Thanks Robcat2075, I just saw your post after I finished my squash one. I tryed adding a ground it but I wanted fast rendering and I couldn't get one I liked...

Very nice and welcome to boot camp seeing robocat has already given his critque I well just leave this as a welcome message

Welcome Bienvenidos!

I do, I do, I love motion blur. But I prefer to use it as icing and make the animation stand on it's own first.

Originally the ABC just grew out of my own trying to work on basics, and then I wanted to have a community to work on it with so I put it out there to help those who didn't know where to start, (and kind of to trick people into all working on similar things (hee hee)) So basically ABC is just focus on basics, so bring whatever you got!!

Just a flat spline would work as a ground plane here (with such a straight on view) or a patch, or even just using the bottom of the screen.

I think that animating ball bounces without squetch helps learn timing. I remember some animator using a penny across the screen, if you can sell it with timing squetch can only make it better. Not super applicable here, but the way I think I've learned timing (aside from practice which is the only real way) is that I think about things in how much of a second it will take (half a sec, quarter of a sec etc) I think somewhere I read you won't see anything faster than a quarter of a sec (but you might feel it) Thinking this way it's easy to switch between 30fps or 24fps.

As for the actual animation, it looks really good to me. I think that the lack of the ground plane is giving the impression that it's vibrating past a magnet instead of a bouncing off a solid plane. And I think maybe you could push the slow at the top and the fast at the bottom a little bit more. But maybe not, looks great.

-Alonso

Hey guys,
Sorry I haven't updated this thread in a while, but I've been really busy. I just uploaded a fixed no squash bouncing ball: http://www.avituchman.com/animation/bounci...no%20squash.mov

So, next up is the bouncing ball in a line!

(Just so you know, I have been doing some animation during all this time, just not bootcamp related...)

I really don't see much wrong with this. You could probably add some rotation to keep it from looking flat. Also there's something about the last bounce that seems kind of forced. I like how it proggresively bounces lower and lower but the very last one just seems to stop dead. I wanna say add a few more pops at the end but I'm not sure if that will help. You'll have to wait till far more qualified people critique you. Good job

Thanks, I'll try that! I had thought it was getting too flouty when I did that, but I'll try again!

I like the ending bounces. It gives a sense of weight and material. A heavier ball isn't going to 'little bounce' for very long at all. Since this is 'No Bounce' animation, that alone tells me the ball is solid and probably heavier than it's rubber 'little bounce forever' counterpart.

Of course, I'm pretty new at this, so it's just my opinion, not a fact, . Anyways, it looks good to me.