Hers my first one.....PLease give me all the info on it as possible good bad ill take both. Actually bad is more helpful for me.

ok something that hits me immediately is ... spacing.


spacing = timing

and

timing = spacing

Bouncing ball is all about that.

Until it contacts the ground, that ball is a falling object and falling objects only do one thing... they accelerate.

Is your ball accelerating on the way down? get this little app http://www.annotatepro.com/trial/ and make a mark on the center of the ball on each frame.

No, really. Do it! This is an important bit of motion analysis.

Is it traveling more and more with each frame or less and less?

OK i get ill work on that and post my new version sometime tommorow.

OK so i guess ill post it now i think i did a better job than my first version but i think the speed of it dropping. Didnt go well with how high the ball bounced what do you think?

OK hers my newest version i think i did alot better on it!
It was a little slow at the beggining.

Ok so ive gotten another one out. Not the same exersise as before tho.

Ok ive been looking around trying to find anything that can help me and found some really good info so i stuck this together and it turned out really well.

OK heres my "final Project" FOr exe 1, I hope ya'll can give me some info!
I would like to thank robcat2075 for his info on my projects, he was a big help! Thanks robcat2075!!

OK here's my first one for Exe: 2....its a little off because i couldnt constrain him to a path...he would go the path route but it was way to slow....how can i fix this?

OK i did some tweaking on the walk one.....speacial thanks to Rodney and MMZ_TimeLord, they helped alot...

Hi Robert, welcome to bootcamp

It looks like you're moving along on these exercises, which is a good sign. Your zeal is quite admirable

You have a couple of clips where tailball's tail sinks into the ground. In these exercises, try to implement realistic conditions to unrealistic objects. The idea is to make your objects believable.

In post #4, the green ball doesn't even stretch before it hits the ground and it is still in squashed form as it leaves the ground which gave the look of jumping rather than bouncing. And yes, it does need more bounces considering the hight it dropped from.

Post #5, can't tell what's happening with the tail (other than disappearing into the ground). Unless the tail was as rigid as the ball it should follow the ball at all times, not go ahead of it.

Post #6, the pendelum effect is too springy. The tail goes slowly in one direction then springs back to the other direction instead of swing. This is where you need to pay attention to acceleration and deceleration.

Post #7 Much better and far more believable than before. Few more bounces need to be added. You're almost there on that one.

Post #8 The final; can't tell what the green ball is doing, especially with the tail appearing out of the ground and doesn't seem to interact to the ball's movements. The red ball feels heavy and you expressed that with the camera movements, which is good, however, in this exercise the idea is to show the difference in "bounces" between a light ball and a heavy one.

Post #10 The walk; well, you should know this one from the 'Take a Walk' exercise in TAoA:M. First off the up/down movement of the body is missing. If you remember the rabbit walk, the hips had to go down when both feet were on the ground and up when one foot was on the ground. Also there should be a side to side movement as the weight shifts from the right foot to the left foot. That's just the nature of gravity.

May I suggest you get some of the books suggested here http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=18563 that will help you understand the methodology of believable animation.

Keep up the good work, you show promise

Ooo thank you!! I've been waiting for someone to give me some critiqs...ill start tweaking them right now.

Heres my ball update u said it needed a few more bounces?

I tweaked number 8 a bit tell me if its any better.

I tweaked my Tail Fly one a bit...im not sure do you think it comes to a stop to sudden?

Is this better Dhar?

Wow That's a great tool I am glad I don't have to write on my screen I went through and marked the center of the ball down in red and up in blue. You still have no acceleration you actually have deceleration the reason is the default of the spline you have to adjust spline curves to make this happen if you don't konow know how ask and we will go into it througher

OK..unfortunatley i cant get that program you got....unless is there one for a mac?
Is this better?

Hers mt Final one for Exe. 1....this one i did right.

Heres one ive been working on for....exe 2:

Right, but the there's a stretch at the end with no bounce.

Also, starting from that height I'd expect the second bounce to be more than half the distance.

On the third bounce it looks like it hit an invisible barrier on the way up, probably because there was not enough decelaration to indicate a slow down.

Little things, nothing major



Better without the tail. You basically gave the ball life and it was jumping.

Now try it without the camera movement and see if the red ball falls convincingly or not.



OK, on this one, I see the problem in the fact that the tail pieces don't follow one another. The smallest part of the tail seems to direct the rest of the tail. Thwe smallest piece can only change direction after the middle one starts moving in the other direction which follows the biggest piece.

I hope I didn't complicate this



Better, but pay attention to the weight transfer. The weight must transfer before the foot lifts, not during as it shows here.

You're almost there on this one.



On this one you need anticipation. Before it steps to the right side have it shift to the left a bit and then go into the side step to the right.

Watch the weight transfer.

Watch the lifting of the foot, you had the right foot lift off the ground before the left foot had touched the ground.

You are progressing very well. I like your enthusiasm.

Keep it up

Heres my update to the ball bounce one.

And the one for the tail flying.

And the third on....the Heavey and light ball.

ANd the walk cycle one...i understood what you meant i had a harder time doing it....i think i got it...tell me what else should be done?

My only critique on the walk cycle is the feet seem to not quite stay put... work on foot speed throughout the cycle.

Otherwise it looks a lot better! (No more toes through the ground!)

Is this any better? Im not wuite sure if i got it...

Wow you are turning them out

Ok I am no expert but look at this the ball goes from stretched to round one frame to soon in mid air. you have some accel in the fall but the 2nd fall is the same speed as the first it should slow down to show loss of energy. in the first fall the ball is slowing down before the hit also.

while in front view of AM not camera view you have scales on the sides of screen if you click in them you get a red ref line do this in center of ball for each key frame look at the accel/ decel make sure you have a contact point before you change stretch to squash and sometimes stretch to round then sqashed depending on speed of animation. Look at my boot camp thread I post screen shots of some of my exe. so you see what I am talking about.

Keep up the pace but take the critiques and go back and stay with the first tell you nail it then nial the 2nd IMHO






I stell see the ball changing shape before it hits the ground




Is this a action or have you animated it totally?

If this is an action then check stride length and then redo it as he is walking a straight line walk cycles have problems turning curves and this will add to the problems you are having.

Keep up the work Wow you are working hard

The bounce update is much improved over the first one.

I've tracked the leading edge to show the spacing. The ball has a slightly restricted quality to its travel as if it were being swatted down tothe ground by an invisible hand rather than bouncing up, losing speed, then falling down again.

If we look at the spacing we see that the ball has fairly consistent speeds and then very abrupt changes at the top of each bounce. It's not quite what we would expect from a freely bouncing ball.

But keep this in mind; the day may come when you need to animate a basketball player dribbling a ball, and this is very much the motion you would want to do.

Classic bounce detail: the ball still isn't doing a contact before the squash. not sure if I mentioned that before. but now i have

K guys thanks for the critiqs ill get working right away, one thing is it all my bounces that seem like there being swatted or just certain ones, if so please tell me wich ones so i can tweak them.

ok i tried PF_Mark's idea of making markers, and took, tell me if this ones better?

Yes PF_Mark it is an action, i tried to fix the stride leagth, im not sure if i got it tho. You tell me,

The only thing that this needs is to not let the ball jump before the stretch. Remember, as it comes down it stretches, it first hits the ground in stretch mode, it squashes while still on the ground, then it stretches while still on the ground, and then it leaves the ground.

Once you solve that, I'd say then put a fork in it



I see the foot slides under the body to keep the balance, which means you got the idea of balance, but it is the body that needs to move over the foot. Keep the foot still and move the body over it to get the balance.

You're almost there on this one.

Ok i finished tweaking both of them Dhar since they where only minor problems, it didnt take long, althogh i think i did get the problem on the walk on, im not sure tho.


After you guys told me all the problems in my bounce project i decided to apply them to my final project for Exe 1, hope ya'll can give your commits.

You're done with the bounce as far as I can tell. The walk movie wouldn't upload for some reason

I put some inticapation into the side step, but im not sure....it doesent look right almost looks like hes got the jitter's.....

Ill render the walk one agian.

You got the concept right, the jitters is probably caused by too many keyframes.

I was wondering if that might be the problem, ill fix it.

Heres the walk one.

Heres my Tweaked Side step on. I think i got rid of the jitters....Actually there might still be one there at the end, im not sure u think there is?

Ok this has never happened to me before so im clueless, i want my guy to be runing then change from a run into a jump, but when i move the bones it keeps it like, even when hes runing. I even tried to move my bines a little but to try and make a keyframe but still didnt work.

Getting better
but look at picture it slows down before it hits this is due to the default spline interpalation of "slope" go to view time line and press the first button on the bottom so we see the waves from each keyframe boxselect the part of the before and after keyframe of the hit you probably see the line arcing right click go to spline inturpulation ok I made pictures. THis is of my first attempt of the ball 2 months ago and I have tried to show what it is I am talking or trying to talk about. Hang in there this may be frustrating but once you get it it makes life so much easier to animate.




I like it

Ok sounds simple enough.

Once you know it really is. Splines control how the movement and the flow. Theis is were you will be spending most of our time to get the movement to Flow this reduces the robotic look and if you really get good at it (I am not) you make characters come to life.

Awsome!

Is this how its sopposed to look?

Here is this better?

Heres my new one for exe 2, hope you all like it.

Does anyone have any commits?

I won't commit to anything, but my comment is that it's a tippy toe action. Other than the sliding, I can't tell if it's tippy toeing as a sneak or fear?

Point taken.....

Your tweaked bounce at this point looks really good to me without sitting down and disecting it frame by frame.

The sidestep seems to still lack some anticipation, but the motion is very smooth now. Good job.

The sneak action seems a bit mechanical, there is no secondary action taking place (ball guy looking around, etc.) also, when you are sneaking you might see him pause on occasion as if he was checking to see if he was heard or could hear a noise himself.

Just my thoughts... keep going Robert, you are cranking them out!

Cool, Thats great advice! I'll get working on it right away tommorow!

Look this is my problem i keep having, i want him to sneak, then stop for a quick moment and look around, but every time i force the keyframe and move the bones this is what happens.