Yhis is my bootcamp thread Yay!
I am going to work through the exercises and lessons for Animation Boot Camp and post them here.
Now to get Fell in

Basic Movement, ex 1

"Perpetual Ball Bounce: make a cycle of a ball falling in place and bouncing back up."


So heres my first exercise- the bouncing ball, 3 keyframes and fiddled a bit with the spline curves

Basic Movement, ex 2

"Regular Balls: drop 2 balls from the same height, show they are made of different materials by how squishy they are and how quickly they stop bouncing."

Ok here's my secind attempt

Basic Movement, ex 3

"Moving balls: have 2 balls bounce across the screen, made of different material"

Basic Movement, ex 4

"Follow through: move a ball with a tail back and forth across the top of the screen, focus on the follow through of the tail."

Have I done something wrong? No comments at all? Please advise???
No one see anything wrong?

OK I will just press on. This one is just gettting to know the tail ball- so I shall call it "animating a dead tail ball accross the screen"


Chris

[attachmentid=11666]

THe first 2 look fine to me but this one has a funny movement of the coloured ball in the 2nd bounce. It seems to do a circle in mid air.

The last movement before the ball stops the tail goes from curved to straight as if it is hitting the edge of the screen then goes into to much of an arc the other way for the short amount of distance traveled. At the bigginging you have the tail arcing past the screen so it should not hit the edge of the screen at the end.

Nice work I feel the ending needs a little fixing up. Just my opinion

Ok this one I am not sure if I am right but I think the tail should slaping against the ground on the frist two bounces. I am not sure I just looked at it agian and it looks better then I frist thought sorry I am new at this and don't want to send someone down the wrong path

No worries Mark, thanks for replying. I wouldn't worry about sending anyone down a wrong path, I just think its good to share opinions. I think if it doesn't look right, its not, and anyone can spot if it looks wrong, regardlesss of experience.

On Ex3 I hadnt noticed that. It almost looks like the red ball does a mid-air swerve to avoid the grey one! That needs sorting,definately.
You are right on ex 4 as well. The effect i was after was as if the ball was b anging up against the edge of the screen on the left, and this didnt come accross very well. There is a little flip at the end as well.

Ex3b On this one I am not sure. Its not working as well as I want and looks dead. I am not sure that the tail should slap the floor on the first 2 bounces, I think it shouldnt as the position of the ball on frames 13 and 29 is two high, but maybe the arc of the tail needs to reverse faster?????

2:04 onwards seems wrong to
PS its helpfull if you can quote frame no.s

Anyone else got any Ideas?

Hi C-wheeler
just some commends

Can't find anything to say about your first to movies

but your Basic Movement, ex 3 looks kind of strange, first i was looking to the red ball, then for 2 or 3 frames i see nothing and then the white ball appears
I thought it may had change color when it was of screen
Maybe its nicer if you leave the balls on the screen so u know where they are.
Like <PF>Mark say's the red ball looks kind of funny, and it is not just the second bounce also the third. it does not seem to make arcs and touches the white ball on frame 13 it looks like this ball is possessed,
Dont know maybe the choise of the perspective cam is wrong

Hope it helps





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

Wow, burstin onto the scene!
You'll have to be a little patient with replies, Forums are always slower and take a few days.

Perpetual bouncing ball looks fine, don't see anything wrong with it. Good squetch, good timing. 3 keyframes, that's great, means you've got a good handle on the channel control.

2 balls falling. The heavy ball looks fine, good 2nd bounce in there to sell the weight. The light ball needs some help. First the squash and stretch are happening only in one diminsion, the ball is getting taller and shorter but not skinnier and fatter to keep the same amount of matter. Think water baloon (It's easier to set up a pose to do this and then animate the pose, then to try and animate the scale changes directly during an animation because directly changing it's really easy to forget the original size of the ball. There's also fancy way's to do this with expressions or scaling a bone) It's hard to tell without the conservation of mass, but it looks like your stretches are not matching the squashes in extremeness. Lastly the bounces aren't consistently declining, some are much shorter than the previous, they need to gradually descend in height. Break out the dry erase marker, or try using the onion skin (Under the Tools menu). It looks like you are getting some nice eases at the top of the arcs, but you could push that a little more. It's 2/3rds there.

2 balls across screen: This is a little difficult to read without the shadows. Did you animate to a flat plane that we aren't actually seeing? White ball looks fine, actually maybe it rolls a little to far. Red ball has a wierd jiggle in it's animation about where it intersects with White. Also I think it needs 1 more bounce before the final bounce. The final roll towards center screen doesn't seem natural. Where's the squetch? Good job on red's rotation, a tricky thing to do.

Good try on the ball side to side. The tail works for most of it. The first right to left, the ball stops violently, which should snap the tail around (the parts keep going in their original direction until their attachments stop them) The end is strange, the tail just stops responding, it should fold down and then probably the energy would gradually settle down to pointing straight down, here it looks like it's just snapping to a strange downward position. But the rest of the tail movement looks good, especially the lesser height that comes from the slower 2:08 movement

Oh I see the shadows. Just drag the goundplane up to the correct height (make sure you do it at frame 0 or turn off animate mode) A little bit of an odd angle, I can't tell if the bouncing arcs are off or not. The squetch looks pretty good, frame 9 and 26 are more stretched than 11 and 27, the biggest stretch should happen right before impact. Ball needs one more bounce. The tail is really good, it's following great. What your missing on the tail is the change that happens when there is a violent change in the parent object's movement, like when it hits the ground, the 1st joint hasn't hit the ground yet, but it's coming down just as fast as the ball was, and then the 2nd piece etc. You've almost got it nailed.




-exactly! Even if you can't say why, anyone can say when something isn't working. And the more people chime in with opinions the more options the animator has to consider



Really strong effort so far. Keep Going!

-Alonso

Thanks to amarillospider, Bertmac and <PF>Mark for replying with the crits. I appreciate your comments and the effort you took over them. I will rework and post results soon as well as some more and certainly visit your bootcamp Bertmac!


Chris

Hi c-wheeler
i just wanna add something to Alonso comment
about the keep volume thing.

I always use this trick

when the ball is normal x , y ,z are 1 so together 3
say i wanna have an stretch and i make the ball taller y=1.2
then x and z will be 0.9 so i adds up to 3 again
in simple words. always keep your x y z to 3 and it will keep its volume

Hope it helps




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

Updated version of 2 balls bouncing.

Corrections- pushed arcs out a little way, changed way ball squashes
Number of bounces and bounce frequency

Kept both balls on screen

Updated version of 2 balls bouncing across the screen.

Corrections- pushed arcs out a little way
Changed way ball squashes
Correctrd wiggle along the way
Number of bounces and bounce frequency
Kept shadows in the picture this time

Kept both balls on screen

Hi all- Latest correction to tailball side to side

Updated version of bouncing tailball.

corrections:
Changed the squetch
Added a few extra bounces at the end and
Made the changes in tail direction snappier

Thanks all
Chris

ps Bertmac- great idea- just type them in!

First attempt at :-

"Bounce 2 alive balls across the screen"

I thought this one was very interesting. I tried to add a different personality to each one[attachmentid=11855]

They both look very alive, and very playful. Two small things stand out to me, both with the ball in the back. Close to the beginning, there's one bounce which seems too fast, and towards the end there's an instance where the ball squetches, but doesn't jump. It almost seems like his feet are sliding. Other than that, they look great to me!

Thanks Brainmuffin for looking and comenting.


This time Both those things were not "mistakes"- that is to say I put them in on purpose, not by accident. But I think youre right- I will lengthen the first bounce- and maybe take out or slow down some of the others. I tied to portray the back ball as very eager for his mate to join him, the front one as allmost nonchalant about it. I am not sure if it came accross though.

Chris

He C-wheeler
Im very positive guy,so i guess u are serious.
So your welcome geezer

Anyway the tail-ball looks good,
Much better than the first one.
It looks much more natural.
Except the first view frames
it looks like the tail is static
For now that's my only comment on it
Very nice

Bertmac


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

No cynacism(??) intended Bertmac I thought it was a nice easy wasy of doing it.

DAMN! My browser just crashed on me before I could post my crit.

Let's see, starting over.

The tail ball back and forth looked perfect!

The tail ball bouncing looked pretty good. You are getting to much snap on the top of the arcs, that's a gentle change of directions so the tail needs to change gently also. And you might consider shortening the bone of the first joint so that it starts at the base of the ball, because a few frames have it above the ball in extreme squashes.

The 2 balls across the screen looks pretty good. Take out the last keyframe on Red because it's causing a wierd twist, and I think if you stopped at the keyframe before it would be the right amount of timing and rolling. Black looks fine, only problems is that it's movement is totally lost through red's flashiness, and it floats above the ground, but the movement looks fine.

The 2 living balls look fine, cute movement. 2 suggestions, it feels like they are starting out in unison, which felt a little odd, and they move the whole time, you might try having one stay still for a little. But they looked good.

Good job. You're improving.

-Alonso

Non taken
I'm glad that helped ya out

I thought I'd try to work through a few more exersises. I wasn't sure wether to show my exercises or just the Final piece from each level.


make a juice box jump


make a juice box shuffle


Pendulum thingy

Seaweed in the tide
Thought I would add some background to it as well

a cycle of a whip (invisible person doing the whipping)
Hard to make this visible, plus I think the bones are two distant in the lash part

I think I need to do some self=crits on these animations, and post some corrections, but before I do so I will post the last of the exercises :- Book pages

Exercise:- Book Pages
Completed 20 Jan 2006
Time Aprx 40 mins inc modeling


Comments The pages move ok, timing seems ok, but I made the model in 2 parts, Pages mdl and
cover mdl. This allowed the pages to bury themselves at the start end end of the action.

Looks good. The pages have something funky going on in the images.

Juiceboxjump- The motion is good, the only thing that's a little weird is you may have added a little to much follow through. It looks almost as if the box is made of jello.

seaweed2- It's hard to actually look at the animation. You get sort of distracted by the background. but if the seaweed motion is the same as seaweed one than that's not really a problem, I didn't find anything wrong with seaweed one. I also like the background. The shark is cool and I love the texture of the seabed. This could actually be a scene from a movie. Nice work.

Book- oops I didn't see your comments. I had mentioned the pages passing through eachother, but you already know that. The actual turning of the pages looks good.

whiped- It looks good but your keeping the whip too straight. When you pull back it should make a arch shape. Basically there should be a delay. The very tip of the whip should follow the back of the whip. I hope that makes sense.

Keep up the good work

Thanks all for comenting.
I see exactly what you mean about the Jello box yump- I should have considered what it was made of, instead of concentrating on follow throuh.

I cant claim any credit for the sea bottom material, the cho came from a caustics experiment by Alonso Soriano . I didn't make the shark either, although I did animate the swimming and try to light the scene as though it was "real".

I will try again on the whip action

Latest mov file:-
AMuxor.mov

I dont think I sold the weight convincingly, and the second bounce looks a little off.
As allways comments welcome!

Chris

I think what's making the weight look a little off is that you have him scrunched while in the air. And then you have him scrunched when he hits the ground as well. So we can't really see the follow through when he hits the ground. It should be stretched out until it hits the ground. You have him stretching up when he leaves the ground, thats good. On the downward motion he'll want to balance himself so he'll shift his weight back.

I like your idea. A take off on Pixar's logo animation.

The second hop after the lamp enters the scene doesn't look even, it's as if it jumps up and then a wind catches it in mid air to push it forward. It's an arch issue.

The follow through motion after the slide isn't clear, maybe it's the angle?

Hi Peeps
Had another little go at the lamp yesterday:- I corrected the arc and changed the profile of the lamp at the end to make it more readable


I also tried a more cartoony walk cycle. I added some squetch to the action and tried to get a little follow through going[attachmentid=13701]


One more walk:-


http://www.franksilas.com/AnimationLessons...alk%20cycle.mov

Chris

HOO HOO HOO, HA, HA, HA, HA....LMAO....

I like your lamp animation, Chris. I especially dug the little skid you put in there. Very nicely done. I could find something to criticize, but I really didn't see anything overly wrong. Well, yes one thing: immediately after the skid, for a few frames, it doesn't seem like the base of the lamp has planted itself, even though it appears to have stopped skidding. Kind of like it's a little floaty. Very minor, though and great animating

Thought I'd add these to the thread- theres not much point in them sitting on my desktop.

Mr Ball HopMr Ball Hop

Casual Sidestep

Sidestep 1

stepping sideways cautiously

sidestep 2

Long Jump

long jump

Mr Ball takes the high hurdle

High Jump

And a couple more:-

Run

Stepinit

These all look great! I especially like the run and the step-in-it ones. The only comment I have is for the step-in-it beginning walk. It doesn't quite look right and I think it might be because when the heel hits the ground, the knee is bent. Maybe it would show more weight if the leg hit straight and then the knee bent showing that it is taking the weight. The run is excellent. All very entertaining!

Paula

Thanks Paula. Youre quit right with the bent knee, it works better without it,

Anyway some more:-

Trudge

And Sneak-
I had a lot of trouble with this one, the feet kept sliding backand forth

Thanks noewjook- his foot is still slipping a tiny bit, but I n the end I just made lots of keyframes

One more-trying to kick the habit

Great work on the kickball animation. I really like the anticipation and follow through. The sound effects really caught me off guard. They fit perfectly.

once again great job.


Leo

Good job. Good anticipation, but it needs a helluva lot more wind up to kick the ball that hard. The foot has to at least rise above the body to hit the ball.

Also watch for that sinking of the ball.

Thanks guys- all comments are always welcome!
Dhar
I missed the fact that the ball was sinking on the frame after contact with the foot- I should have checked that after I applied squetch to it.
The lack of phisical anticipation was intentional- I wanted to get a conflict between a slow build up and a fast action. It sems to work for some people, and not for others. ANyone else have an opimion?

Chris

Updated the Kickball to remove the sinking ball efect, and had a go at the balancing thingy

Chris,

The only thing I am seeing is when your character is spinning around after having kicked the ball. His right foot seems to go all crazy and folds up on to the leg. Maybe its just the camera angle though. Other wise great job.

Leo

Sorry Leo - I didnt realise the file was to large to upload- I went over the top with 19 seconds complete with sound.

For anyone interested I put it on my website:-

TightRope

Heres a smaller version