Left...Left...Left...Right....Left
hmmm, that's not very effective while sitting in a computer chair.....

Hi everybody!!!
Yes, I'm finally starting my boot camp thread. I'm so excited!!!!
Feel free to critique away, I can definitely handle it.... in fact I would love it!

Alright so here is my first bouncing ball ever.... I think it's alright for the first try, but I'm almost positive there is a gazillion things that will need changed (I've read almost all of the boot camp threads, so I'm prepared to make lots of revisions), so without further-ado here it is.....
[attachmentid=18710]
(yes I know that it's a little too bouncy at the end when it comes to a stop, I'll fix that next time)

Well....what d'ya think?

(oh Rodney, don't worry...I still plan on finishing TAoAM sometime....this way I can work on this or that and have options. I decided though that by starting to learn my ABC's I might be more useful for TWO (since I'm not a modeler or rigger or anything))

Edit: Here it is, with me fixing the end of it....
[attachmentid=18711]

Edit Edit: hmm it still stops kinda funny

The first one was as good as the second, actually I liked the extra bounce in the first one... It's a little fast though, especially when it "jiggles" at the end.

It's a good start, though, very good. It seems like just the timing that needs to be tweaked.

Yes, I agree, this is a timing problem......
Slight time variance on the ending on this one....slight....might still be too fast
[attachmentid=18712]
(oh, side note for MMZ_Timelord (aka Jody), thanks for letting me look over your shoulder constantly at the hash bash. I finally know how to use those silly graphs in the timeline that you were using!!! It was like an aha moment in this exercise and it just clicked! I get how those work now!!! Yippie Skippy Yahoo)

Aha! Think you can take the short road to success eh?
You're not the first!

Seriously, there really is no hard and fast rule here.
You can do them simultaneously, in reverse order, standing on your head... you call the shots.

There is a method to the madness though.
Walk (Learn A:M*)... Run (Animate**)... Fly (Get involved in a collaborative project***)

It just so happens that these coincide with:
* TAoA:M
** Animation Bootcamp
*** TWO

You can substitute other lessons and experience for any of these.
You don't even have to complete any of these to get involved in TWO. (well... you have to be involved with TWO to be involved with TWO!!!)
It is just the suggested best course of action for success.

Now lest you think these reasons have any merit they aren't the real reason to work through TAoA:M, Bootcamp and get involved in TWO. The real reason is the interaction you get with others with like goals and motivations as your own.

Right now there are at least 3 up and comers that are creating ripples in TAoA:M. Call them the 'J' brothers; James, Jay (Jason), and John+. They may be making ripples now but hold on to your floaties... cause here come the wave!

Downloading your bouncing balls now!

Rodney

+ And do not forget Bruce. People that underestimate Bruce will regret it!

You caught me red-handed!
I kinda got stuck on all the modeling exercises and I'm really anxious to start animating!!!

ehehe...thanks Rodney! It looks like I'm kinda doing all three at once and rotating it a bit.

That's a pretty funny post though, cause I run cross country a lot and I, well, yeah, I like to think that I can run first. Too bad I didn't learn how to run before I could walk when I was little, now there would be a good story and explanation for my out-of-orderness-syndrom.....nope I have no excuse except that of being anxious and wanting to jump right in!!!


I've sorta done a reverse order type thing... I did TAoAM through Exercise 6, then I tried to do some work on TWO (definitely not easy when you don't know how to walk) , then I bought a bunch of books to study this thing we call animation (still reading all of those by the way) , and then I returned to TAoAM a little bit, then I started this, and I just want to do it all.... what can I say?

I'm sure that there is a order to my madness, I'm just not sure what it is?

Your approach sounds too much like mine... ergo... you're doomed.

(Broke for dinner so haven't seen your bouncing balls yet)
Rodney

Yay Teresa's finally here! About time

Since we've already met and done stuff, I'm gonna dispense with the pleasantries and get right to business.

I want at least three more bounces on an otherwise pretty decent bouncing ball.

Ya know... sometimes I think these initial exercises should have been designed to be in black and white.
Anybody else think so? Ayyee... didn't think so.

Maybe two colors?
Add a new color for each ball or object added to the scene?

We are missing one of the most important aspects of Bootcamp here.... speed!
You know... animate... Animate... ANIMATE!

The attached images demonstrates why black and white... well... it just ain't gonna work the way we're doing this now. Adjust the color level in these early Bootcamp exercises and everyone would get silhouetting thrown in for free.

Just typin' out loud...

Looks pretty good lets see the next exe.

Does this help Rodney?
[attachmentid=18717]


I need to work on the timing???? Is that what you mean???

It does indeed Teresa.
Let me investigate a standard eval method and I'll post more on it.

If the Bootcamp models were setup to be the right colors to begin with that'd help too.

Hmmm... lets see now... I'm thinking I like this one.
(Click for Gif animation - Note that the imperfection in the ball is due to the shading on yours)

...and when we keep things simple its easier to evaluate.





From here you should be able to evaluate the bounce yourself.



What do you think?
Do the arcs flow?
Does the squash and stretch read correctly?
Inquiring minds want to know.

Note that since yours is an animation from front view only some awkwardness will appear when placing these images side by side. Remind yourself that the ball is not moving left to right or right to left. It doesn't hurt to think in these terms but isn't required or entirely appropriate for a front on view animation.

Oh oops sorry bout the shading...
Only difference in this one is the toon render, so the shading doesn't effect it so much.
(don't know why there is a line on the horizon?)
[attachmentid=18720]

hmmmm, what do I think?

Well, when I look at it side by side like that.... I think the arcs flow, except for the third bounce (they're maybe a little bit off). I think the squash and stretch reads right? I dunno....yes, yes I think it reads alright. Just that third bounce that is a little funny, me think.

I referenced the Animators Survival Kit ball bounce for this, or at least i tried....

Hey... I like that! Nice... simple render.

That came out perfectly with no adjustment on my end.
You're going to have to share those render settings!



It looks like it too. Let me see if I can apply some more eval methods to this...

eheheheh, hmmm, let me see if I can remember???? Just sec. I'll edit them in here....

in the objects I have- the ground color on white as well as the ball
in the camera (chor&objects)- I thought I changed the background to black, but guess I didn't cause it's still on default???
toon render
Sorenson 3
High quality
VGA
15 frames/sec
key frame every 10
I think that's about it? Just messing around with stuff!

This definitely gets better with each post Teresa!

Few quickie suggestions. At the apex after the first two bounces the ball stays in the same position for two frames, try moving it ever so slightly up on that second frame. On the second bounce you also have it squashing so that the top of the ball stays in the same place for both that squash frame and the 2 frames after when the ball stays in the same place. Try making sure that the top of the ball isn't in the same place for all 3 of those frames.

You should also have a few more bounces after the first two. While the ball would lose energy with each bounce, it wouldn't stop bouncing after the first two. You do have the squash and stretch but since the ball doesn't get back in the air it makes it look like the ball is sticking to the ground.

I love how much the ball bounces after it hits the ground, very spritely. Looking real good. They really drilled the bouncing ball in to us at Animation Mentor in our first quarter and while it seemed tedious at first, it pays off in the end. Woooo!!

Thanks My Fault (I didn't do it)
I'll work on that tomorrow if I can and post it again.
I appreciate all the comments everyone! Thanks a bundle!
bedtime for me
Edit- All of you who know me, know that I have a hard time getting off the internet and going to bed.
So here it is again, with me trying to make the changes that My Fault suggested... I tried to implement
the changes the best that I could, I'm not sure if I followed the advice correctly (I redid it pretty quickly).
Hopefully I got some of them right? I'll have to re-look at it in the morning when I'm more awake.
[attachmentid=18731]
Edit Edit: Nope still stops bouncing too quickly. Oh well, tomorrow I guess....

Haha, animating is way more addicting then sleep, isn't it!

The important thing Teresa is that you are keeping at it and it is getting better each and every time. Just keep thinking about loss of energy. As the ball loses energy, the bounce gets smaller and smaller. And as the ball bounces less, it hits the ground with less weight so the squash and stretch gets less and less as well. Perhaps try killing the S&S on the last few bounces and just focus on the bounce. Your y-axis should get smaller and smaller in the graph editor. Then once you nail that bounce, slowly add in a bit of S&S to pepper it up a bit.

Great stuff Teresa!!

ahahah perfect description... I can feel my head doing the same thing right now!!
Bobbing up and down getting lower and slower....crash....huh...what...morning already!!!
I can definitely fix that tomorrow! I'm just too impatient tonight and trying to fix
it really fast!

Sleep well Teresa. Its up in the morning early and back to the drills for you!

It looks like you did the adjustment as described but... domino effect... now more adjustment needed.
The attached shows frames 8 through 20*.
Can you tell were the law of gravity is negated?

At least I think that is frames 8 through 20...

Edit: Added frame numbers for clarity.
The arc from the first bounce going into frame 13 would send the ball back down.
You've got 14 and subsequent frames on a different arc.

ehehe, I know I know, it's 12:09am, wait a sec. Rodney that means it's 1:09am for you!!!

Well shoot, I didn't read your post, Rodney, until after I rendered it, so frames 8-20
are probably still messed up in this one. They must wait until morning this time (or should
I say, they must wait until later this morning).

*I took the link out
ah, shoot that's what I get for doing this half asleep...I didn't render the whole thing....hmmph just sec. it's re-rendering
alright here it is...
[attachmentid=18735]
(in my re-render I tried to find that gravity defying frame, I'm not sure if I got it or not, maybe I moved the ball in the wrong frame altogether, who knows)
ALRIGHT GOODNIGHT for the umpteenth time

Teresa,
When you do read this...

I was going to show you a side by side comparison showig that you pretty much fixed the area I as focusing on. It looks like you hit the oher areas too.

...and might I say... Its great to have more Animation Mentor trained animators commenting here.

My computer must be tired too because it is completely messing up the simplist of tasks on my end.
My keyboard seems to be going out too. Looks like time for a little computer adjustment.

When I get ths thing to save an image out right I'll post it here.

Rodney

Edit: Finally got it- to save with the balls showing.

welcome to bootcamp teresa, i'm trying to grunt through this as well. i think your last attempt has the bouncing bang on. i definately am no expert but it looks like youve done the same as i did with the speed. the guys pointed out that the bounce up would be slower than the fall.

Alright here's my first attempt at the exercise with two balls of differing weight.
For some reason I don't think it reads right...
I can't put my finger on it though...
[attachmentid=18774]

Too much bounce on the heavier ball. It should come to rest much quicker.

Yes indeed that's it! Sily me, thanks Ilidrake!
It's re-rendering right now!
I'll add it to this post when it's done.
(long render for something so little...i really need to look into buying more ram, i'm only at 768MB DDR SDRam)
Okie Dokie here it is again
[attachmentid=18775]
I think that helped a lot. I might still have it bouncing a little too much though...maybe three itsy bitsy tiny hops are too many.
I could try less if you guys think that might help?

Nice!

About the only thing I would suggest, and this is purely for a little additional entertainment purposes, is to add a small bit (very small) of either ground shake or camera shake when the heavy ball first hits the ground.

Great work Teresa!!

Much better Simply have the little bounces of the heavier ball broke down to maybe 1 or 2 bounces of greater magnitude and you've got it. Or maybe have it hit and give a little bounce. One way or the other, but you've definitly got it.

Thanks guys!
(I'm working on the camera idea right now! Great idea by the way...I've actually never moved the camera during a shot so this is good practice, and now I know how to do it since I can use those graphs!!! Well, maybe... I just rendered one, but there's no evidence of the camera shift I put in....I'll try again)

Make sure you have the camera selected whenever you open the time line.

I did the camera thang on my exercise, but was told to refrain from it because it detracts from detail analysis of the bounce. Oh well.

Teresa, the first "heavy" bounce looks too much like the second, which makes it look un-natural. The first bounce needs to look higher than the the next.

Keep up the good work

I can agree with that... the ground shake will indeed detract from the simplicity of the animation and make evaluation more difficult. I think the suggestion is more that once you are happy with the animation... it in effect is 'done*' add the effect to really finish it. You can almost always add more... harder to take away.

*This is in a way the revelation that an animation is never really finished.
You just find a comfortable place to stop and move on to the next thing.

The 'camera thang' is really the same. Get the basics right and then add the artsy fartsy stuff that sells the shot.

In the case of the heavy ball hitting the ground the camera shake can be more than appropriate.
Perhaps especially when it embeds itself in the ground due to its weight.

So... I'd suggest getting 'er done... then if you want to run through again with a variation or two... go for it!
If you can do them quickly all the better.

*Note-I'm not great with camera work, and I think I accidentally have the camera moving before the ball even hits. oops. I've had so many computer problems today, I'm not sure if I'll redo this exercise right away.
[attachmentid=18783]

My internet connection is really lousy today, and I've been trying to get on long enough to post this, I finished it at about 1pm.
Good idea Rodney, I'll go through and get them done and then go back if I want to redo them!
Thanks for all the comments!

Teresa,
While it probably wouldn't hurt to redo them all after running through the first time I'm not suggesting you do that. When you get through the entirety of Bootcamp the probability of anyone actually going back and redoing these basic exercises approaches zero. The mind/ego simply won't allow it.

Instead I'd recommend doing the exerice.
Redoing it to correct any errors.
Redoing it to hit key objectives.
Redoing it to finese and improve animation.
Redoing it to meet acceptable suggestions.
Moving on to the next exercise.
Returning to the previous exercise and redoing it *if* you've learned something that is applicable.

This is my suggestion but you don't have to follow it.
I'm sure I've missed more than a few reasons to return to a work.
Most animators will never return to the same work again although some elements (the basics) will always transfer forward.

(something like that!)
Rodney

sounds great and makes sense, thanks Rodney (and congrats on your a:m gift)

Nice tests Teresa!

Just a reminder, heavier balls fall no faster than lighter balls. Galileo showed this from the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Apollo 11 astronauts demonstrated it again on the moon. Also between frames 12 & 13 there seems to be a pop direction change in the ball on the left, NBD. One last thing you might want to consider, the trajectory of a ball shot into the air is the same coming down as it was on the way up. What that means for this test is that the number of frames the ball is in the air coming down should equal the number of frames the ball is in the air going up (more or less). You should reduce the number of frames on the next bounce up to show decay. You have the hard parts, spacing is good and the S&S looks very elastic and lively.

Good job!

Hi Teresa,
Welcome to bootcamp, soldier!
Now I need to get a haircut as well.
Unfortunately I find it hard to crit on the heavy ball- it seems to reach the top of its arc on frame 6, go back a frame on frame 8 and just stay there for the rest of the sequence. Is this just because of the camera movement?
Chris

Hi everybody! I'm baaack.....
It has been so hard being away from this site for over a week.... I'm so addicted!
Our internet modem completely stopped working so we had to order another one in the mail, and then I went to fiddle camp for a week. The fiddle camp was in Kittitas, WA (aka middle of nowhere...Radiator Springs....) and there was absolutely no access to the internet anywhere!
Anyways, it's good to be back.
I'll start into boot camp again soon.... I can't wait
I've almost finished The Illusion of Life already!!! It's sooo good!
Oh, and at fiddle camp I learned how to play the mandolin and the ukulele!!!
Ok, anyways, I'm rambling, I'll post some actual work later.
In the mean time I see I have a lot of catching up to do, reading lots of posts.

... this one time?... At fiddle camp?....

You need to post some fiddle and ukulele MP3's...

... you... geek!



-vern

I'll second the comment about gravity. The rigid ball wouldn't have any reason to race down faster than than the bouncy ball. (air resistance is probably not a factor here)
Also the rigid ball is moving in almost identical increments in the first four frames rather than accelerating.

The bouncy ball is working very well!

the bobble at the top is a bit odd. I'm wondering how that happened.

The jiggel at the end is cute. It doesn't seem quite to flow with the motion that leads into it. I'm not exactly sure why.

Thanks guys for all the comments and critiques... I guess, I forgot about Galileo...oops! I can definitely fix that. Anyways, thanks again for all the feedback.

Vern, I managed to find a recording of me playing the fiddle (6 months old I think)..... It's a little bit of two songs...not old time tunes though...
note: annoying feedback in this and I did get a little finger tied at the end, but....
[attachmentid=19283]
I had a hard time getting it to compress (kept freezing when it was 79% done) anywho, yeah.... If you really want to hear the ukulele and the mandolin I can record them sometime....
Yup I'm a geek, openly admit it (and proud of it)!

Day 15

I ache all over and can hardly move.

This boot camp is more physically demanding than ever suspected.

I have blisters on the tips of three of my fingers! Which is definitely not from a week
of playing the mandolin constantly.

and the bumps and bruises couln't be from the pillow fight/pig pile/wrestling match I had with
my two sisters, brother in law, and friend at the lake cabin....nope definitely not

Worst of all though is my head that can only move to one side (my neck is killing me)
....I strongly believe my wild tube rides and face plant on the knee board have no
connection to this injury....must be from the harsh conditions of boot camp!
(drat can't compress the tube crash videos to under 1mb except using mpeg4)
oh well, just imagine some spectacular crashes caught on video

Anyways, the physical demands of this boot camp are taking their toll......

Sincerely, Teresa


jk
It's a good thing this boot camp isn't physically demanding! Cause I seriously am quite sore...
Although, it does sound weird saying "I'm going to go relax and work on my boot camp."
I still can't believe I forgot about the whole Galileo thing and gravity! I must not have been thinking.
Thanks again for all the replies and here is the video yet again with some corrections made!

[attachmentid=19396]

I focused on fixing the increments and the gravity. Both of which made considerable improvements me think!

Vern, here's the promised uke recording....I just started learning it last week, so.....if it's not good that's why!
[attachmentid=19407]

alright last one...here's the mandolin....
[attachmentid=19409]
now...back to animatin

Yeehaaa!

I finally have a reason to buy an iPod.

Coming soon...

Oh Sister Woot Art Thee

-vern

Sorry I didn't post anything today like I said I would... I got a little distracted by a wildfire that is a little too close for comfort to our lake cabin. They've declared the fire as a state of emergency. It grew from 15 acres to over 300 in the space of a couple hours... (good thing we came home when we did otherwise I would be stuck up there, as the road we use is closed). So far it has burned 7 homes and is threatening the little town of Valley, WA which is mostly a Mennonite/Amish community. (I threw that info in there for Vern, but it is true, I see them playing baseball at the elementary school in their dresses and bonnets)

I'll get the ball with the tail posted tomorrow.

Oh drat! This first pass on the bouncing tail-ball didn't work worth beans...
I screwed this one up royally!
Chaos ahhhh chaos!!!!!! That means I have to go back and look at that crazy looking graph I made!
Back to the drawing board
[attachmentid=19474]
I'm working on fixing the major tail problems right now. Critiques are of course still welcome, I have a lot of stuff to fix!

Are you using Dynamic Constraints on the tail? That could probably give you a nice follow-thru for the tail. Overall I thinks it's just ducky

Looks good to me... not chaos... don't see any chaos...

Maybe the chaos didn't render? I don't think Hash updated the chaos filter for v13 yet.

Continue tweaking of course. It may not be chaos but it could use some tweaking. But it isn't that bad... Especially if you hand keyframed the tail... I hate that stuff.. takes me ages to get it right.

I shouldn't be judging anything. I'm way to forgiving.

-vern

Thanks guys!
Yeah I hand keyframed the tail on that last one.....I still plan on touching up the movement of the tail....but I thought I'd experiment tonight with the walking ball model; however, he is having a minor medical crisis at the moment...

[attachmentid=19560] [attachmentid=19561]
I just downloaded this model from one of the pages with the boot camp models on them. It looks like the bones are connected right to me...but they must not be, because the right leg falls off. Does anybody know or can anybody tell by this, if it is a user error or a problem with the bones?

Hi Terasa- open the bones part of the folder, then drag the top bone of the offending leg onto the same bone as the other one. I'me sure thats how I did it , but I cant check on this pc till tomorrow

Chris