PLANNING AND MECHANICS
The next stage focuses on the planning and mechanics within an animation, taking all the key principles and ideas learnt in the 'Bouncing Ball' and then applying them to the ball and tail. This section required us to begin to apply the next 6 principles of animation, these are: Primary/secondary action, Overlap, Exaggeration, Appeal, Staging and Anticipation. Each principle affects the animation in a specific way and allows the flow and the way in which we as an audience interpret the animation. My main focus is to show the interaction between the tail and the ball bouncing; similar to how a squirrel uses its tail for balance and to move around, this could be classified as the Primary/Secondary action.
Exaggeration and Appeal are the other principles i aim to focus on as this can not only strengthen my animation but also allowing the audience to understand what the animation is about or what the character is doing. My initial idea was to show my ball and tail going through an obstetrical course and trying to over come the barriers in the scene; then he interacts with the Pendulum.
Exaggeration and Appeal are the other principles i aim to focus on as this can not only strengthen my animation but also allowing the audience to understand what the animation is about or what the character is doing. My initial idea was to show my ball and tail going through an obstetrical course and trying to over come the barriers in the scene; then he interacts with the Pendulum.
Pendulum test
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My first test was primarily experiments with the motion of the pendulum and the speed and motion, creating smooth curves as it flows from side to side. The motion of the pendulum slows down as reaches its peak and moves away from the center of gravity and then speeds up as it moves back into the center of gravity. To create the contrast between the fast and the slow motions of the pendulum more frames were set in between the positions to slow the motion down and less key frames for the fast motion; this is the technique from the bouncing ball for the ease in and ease out
Ball and tail
The ball and tail was similar to the flow of the pendulum, as you can see i created my first test of the ball and tail bouncing on the spot. I first animated the ball bouncing on the spot, then i begin to look at how the motion of the tail is affect by the motion of the ball;know as the secondary action.
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Staging and planning
Before any form of 3D of digital animation started, i started researching and experimenting with different positions for my ball and tail, trying to keep a dynamic movement of the tail.
Animating the tail
Using my references i tried posing my tails in certain positions similar to the images below, this helped me with certain actions for my ball and tail showing anticipation and movement within the air. Using the graph editor allowed me to tweak and change the movement of the tail, making it seem move fluid and extending the curves in the graph editor; curves are on of the most important aspect of animation.
Final render
evaluation
My skills became more advanced because of this task, i felt that through learning the concepts in my ball and tail, i could take it one step further by animating more that one element in one scene, making them work together and sync together. The movement of the tails was the most challenging due to the fact that it had to correspond with ball as it bounced, but after a while i understood the motion of the ball. I felt that the research help me allot when animating the tail, and the fact that i blocked out my scene and my animation, this made my vision clear when animating in 3D because It made me structure my animation when positioning the my camera angles; this important because the camera angles tell viewer how to relate to the narraive the story.