Hello everyone,

Well here goes my first try, I think I got alot to learn .


[attachmentid=15839]


Bob Koonce

Bob,

Good try for your first attempt. A few things pop out at me though. The ball seems to fall too slow. Also the on the bounce back up the ball travels higher than the initial start position. With the speed at which you are making you ball drop, that wouldn't happen. If you sent your player to loop and play the animation, it pops. You want to try to make a smooth cycle, so it can be repeatable. I hope that I am not being too critical.

Excellent start, keep going

Leo,

I don't think your being to critical at all, I appreciate all the help I can get. I think I need to study up on keyframing and the use of the timeline before I post again though, Haven't got that down yet
Practice, practice, practice

Thankx again Leo,
Bob Koonce

Yes, one of the reasons "bouncing ball" is such a good starter exercise is that it pretty much forces you to become acquainted with both the timeline and the channel editor.

there's a post at the top of "Students" that shows what typical bouncing ball channel curves will look like. Channel curves are splines rather like the splines in the modeler: they are shaped and tweaked with the bias handles.

Welcome to the Bootcamp!

Welcome to bootcamp. Good job on your first lesson. Leo & Robert pretty much touched on the points that I observed. Good use of squash & stretch. There needs to be acceleration on the way down and deceleration as the ball reaches the highest point.

Try to keep your objects under the light in the chor window

Hello everyone,

Still trying to get use to the timeline and channel editing.

Here's another example.
[attachmentid=15870]
Managed to create acceleration and deceleration on this one, took me awhile but still managed.

Searched for tutorials that might explain the timeline and channels better, didn't happen!

any ideas where to go?

Thankx
Bob Koonce

That's a lot better. If you want a more cartoony look, try adding a little sideways squashing while it's moving fast.

Excellent Bob. You really made quite an improvment from the first one. As far as tutorials on the timeline and channels. I never found any, I myself just played around with some the features to get further knowledge on them. I guess it helps coming from an animation background though, as I already knew about those kinds of things, I just had to find the A:M equilavent. I will keep my eyes out for you though.

Once again good job.

Good Job, some problems i saw where that you need to have the ball be in stretch as soon as it leaves the ground.
I put some pictures up to show what i mean.

Robert here is an example of the ball stretching as it leaves the ground.
[attachmentid=15876]
Thanks everyone for your support during this trial and error phase I'm going through .

Bob Koonce

Looking better Bob.

There are no tutorials per se in bootcamp. However, there is one book that has been recommended quite a few times and that's Richard William's "The Animator's Survival Kit". In it you'll find everything you need to know to easily accomplish the exercises here.

Thanks Dhar,

I'v seen "The Animator's Survival Kit" also mentioned several times in the forums, think I might check it out.

Bob Koonce

Looking good!

Well onward to the next exercise in Lv1 of the ABC.

[attachmentid=15882]

Bob Koonce

getting closer... but before we go on, post a screen capture of your channel for the vertical motion of the ball, and let's take a look at what's going on.

Bob,
Unlike TAoAM the Bootcamp will give you some really deep and useful feedback on your animation.
TAoAM is more of an introduction to 3D animation and Animation:Master. The measure of success with TAoAM is completing the exercises. ABC is about mastering the principles of animation. Success with Bootcamp comes when you really let those principles really sink in.

Take your time, do and redo, and examine closely what others suggest here. Mine this experience for all its worth.

As far as tutorials...
I'd suggest a search of 'principles of animation' via Google.
You'll find enough information there to keep you investigating for a very long time.

Here is one link from thousands:

http://www.evl.uic.edu/ralph/508S99/index.html

Don't investigate just 3D animation. Some of the best resources you'll find are documented by the masters of 2D animation. Some of my personal favorites are: Preston Blair, Animation Meat (this site has collected some nice resources), Frank and Ollie, Keith Lango... the list never ends.

robocat2075,

Heres the screen capture of Bounce_Example_3.mov please let me know whats going on.
[attachmentid=15896] [attachmentid=15897]
Rodney,

I will look at more material on animation, but I feel my real strugle is understanding the timeline and channels in A:M, after I understand the principles there, things might flow better.

thanks for your help everyone,

Bob Koonce

Thank you, this does tell us a lot.

Whenever we try to make "believable" animation we have to try to show the effects of the forces involved. In "bouncing ball" that force is gravity. Gravity is what makes the ball fall and gravity is what makes it stop rising after it bounces.

Gravity is never satisfied. Even after it has made the ball start falling, it continues to pull on it and make it fall faster... frame after frame after frame.

On the y-graph we see a pretty straight line from 00:00 to 00:08 which means the ball is moving in pretty even increments during that time. Likewise from about 00:15 to 00:20

We can see that too in this clip where I've marked up the center of the ball on each frame. The yellow brackets show some spots where the ball is moving up or down, but not changing speed.

[attachmentid=15898]

That sort of motion is very un-gravity-like. A falling ball will go farther and farther in each frame. A ball after the bounce will be going up less and less in each frame. Gravity never gives up, never takes a break.

The very end is working better; the ball does appear to be decellerating, and the curve confirms that.

You're on the right track by adding the extra keyframes inbetween the top and bottom, but to get it right you'd have to put a key on every frame.

There's an easier way... shape the curve with the bias handles on the CPs. (they work just like the bias handles in the modeler. Turn on Show Bias Handles. Peak them, smooth them, twist them, whatever it takes to get the right shape.)

You can get rid of those keys frames inbetween the top and the ground. Look at the sample curves again at the top of this thread. They start out almost horizontal and get steeper and steeper with each frame. They are "parabolas". Make your curves like that

This editing of these curves is the big contribution of computer animation to the art. In 2D you'd have alot of redrawing ahead of you. In CG you just need to tweak a few curves to make it "perfect".

BTW, you can see the shape of these curves better if you double-click the Timeline (actually I prefer the PWS, but Time line is similar) off into a free window and drag it out to full screen size. Toggle it on and off with the keyboard short cut.

Leaving it scrunched way down at the bottom of the screen doesn't allow much detail in the curves.

Thanks robocat2075 for your explanation of the y graph and what I need to do to get the ball more authentic looking as regards to gravity. I redid the y angle using the bias handles like you suggested here is an example of it along with another mov file after the adjustments were made.

[attachmentid=15912] [attachmentid=15911]

Thank you,
Bob

still work to do here

- is the ball accelerating when it is moving down? (gravity should be making it go faster and faster)
- is it on the ground too long? ( a bounce is usually just a glancing contact with the ground)
- is the ball decellerating after it leaves the ground? (gravity should be slowing it down)

most importantly... does it move like bouncing balls you've seen in real life?

Take a look again at the sample curves at the top of this forum. what is the shape of a curve when a ball is falling? when it is rising back up?

Well heres another try, I included a screen grab of the Y channel, I hope I comprehended what a "parabolas" was, I used the bias handles to obtain the angles I think I needed.
[attachmentid=15957] [attachmentid=15959]
Any help, comments or constructive criticism welcome,
Bob Koonce

That is WAY better Bob!

Remember you can peak those bias handles to help make sharp changes.

I think you'll need to do that to get the last frame before the squash to touch the ground. (a classic bouncing ball thing). You'll have two frames where the ball is contacting the ground.

And then the first one after the squash could be farther up. that first interval should be the biggest after the bounce; each one after that will be less and less and less and lesss.... Which you have happening

wow thats wonderful now change the lighting and see if you can make it more realistic!then you'll have a video to show ot every one.heah grab a pre made modle and make them bounce it!

Heres another go at it .

[attachmentid=15978] [attachmentid=15977]

P.S. black mage, I'm just a beginner, one thing at a time, lighting, shadows etc. will come later .

Bob Koonce

Looks good to me. Good job

Yeah, just concentrate on motion right now.


But what was the reason for losing the accelleration as it goes down ?(look at your curve... it's flat most of the way down )

and the ball still isn't contacting the ground on the frame before the squash.

If you havent' read Richard William's chapter on bouncing ball yet... it's gold...you can get it cheap used on Amazon.com

I don't know where the extra CP at frame 6 on the accelleration of the curve came from so I removed it and got back the curve I wanted, I lowered the two CP's at the bottom of the curve, couldn't go much or the ball started going thru the suface, heres another go at it.
[attachmentid=15992] [attachmentid=15991]

Bob

You can key that ball anywhere on any frame, so there's no reason to accept it being somewhere you don't want it to be.

Say you have a ball falling and for some crazy reason need it to zip off somewhere weird for just one frame, and then continue on as if nothing had happened.

Impossible? No!

Add keyframes before and after and tweak the bias handles until you get the original curve back:
[attachmentid=15995]

If we can do that... you can get that one frame to touch the ground.

Hi Bob!

Your last ball bounce looks really nice! However, I think it could accelerate a little more at the beginning. Also I see you have two frames of the ball in the 'squashed' position on the floor. I would change the second of these two frames to a different level of 'squashiness', so the ball will seem more malleable (I don't know if that makes any sense)

Nice work!
-Josh

Peaked and tweaked, if I go any further the ball goes thru the floor (see screen grab below).
[attachmentid=16011]
The ball seems to be coming into contact with the floor as desired (see movie file below).
[attachmentid=16012]
I also adjusted the squetch up by 2% on the contact frame as suggested.

Thank you everyone, for taking the time to show me what I need to become better at animation, (I thought wow bounce a ball, squish it here and there no problem) , what a reality wake up !
I believe that all your comments and suggestion have been of great help, and valuable in my further education of animation.

Thanks again,
Bob Koonce

If you're going to do two squash frames, I'd make the second one the more squashed rather than the first.

There still isn't a stretched contact frame before the squash. What's stopping you?