Our focus this week was on the subject of timing and spacing which was one of the elements of the bouncing ball exercise and we even learned some useful tips regarding planning for our stopmotions or Maya animation pieces. We also reviewed our animation work from the last week and the given feedback could help us develop in our work. We were reminded how that when doing our work we needed to make sure that we met the deadlines on the brief and as we've been constantly told it was important to stick to the brief, and if we didn't much like in the industry we'd fail the module and end up looking for another job. In terms of our animation many of us had began using our bar sheets and story boards to plan our stop motions before we execute them. Joe told us that it was always good to plan things out first since in the film making industry we needed to follow a script set out by the director. If we didn't plan our work out first it would mean our animation would fail especially when it came to story telling in our animations much like the block interaction exercise, as Joe stated " Failing to prepare is to prepare to fail."
Looking at the subject of the block interaction exercises and the story that they told, we were advised that we had to connect with the characters even empathise with the characters. Empathy is a key element within any form of film making seeing the characters struggle in their story or develop themselves into something else in the films story much like how the audience empathised with the character of Elsa in Disney's Frozen who was so scared of her powers and in the end left to protect those she loved this was where we feel the exact same way if we were in the characters shoes. In this instance we empathise with the cubes who are being either bullied or picked on by other cubes in the animations we created so far and wonder how we feel in that position. We switched to the focus of todays assigned exercise or for most people who have already attempted the exercise like myself it would possible grant insight for us to improve.
In this exercise there were different balls for us to use in our animations but the key to this was the weight of the ball itself as this would depict how many bounces and watching visual references would help us depict the material of the ball be it rubber or clay. We were then brought to see a video on the subject of timing and spacing which was a video that we could view on blackboard but as Johnny joked it would put us to sleep, however it showed us how spacing in an animation works and that as Joe told us more frames make a slow stop motion piece whilst fewer would create a faster pace of animation. The key to elements like the bouncing ball would be the arcs in the bouncing of the ball itself.
However we needed to make sure that when doing our work we didn't get too distracted since when we started making a ball it is a likely hood that we would get distracted, this I could understand as when doing blog posts or Maya work I get distracted by the internet or wanting to do illustration work of my own. In addition Johnny mentioned that there was no such thing as multi tasking in animation as when we switch from an unfinished task to a new one we loose time on the current task and the story that we were telling within the story we were trying to complete by a designated deadline which did make sense.
In the bouncing ball animations there are two forces at work momentum vs gravity the video told us that different balls have different momentums when being slowed by gravity after the fall. Some examples are of the following;
Looking at the subject of the block interaction exercises and the story that they told, we were advised that we had to connect with the characters even empathise with the characters. Empathy is a key element within any form of film making seeing the characters struggle in their story or develop themselves into something else in the films story much like how the audience empathised with the character of Elsa in Disney's Frozen who was so scared of her powers and in the end left to protect those she loved this was where we feel the exact same way if we were in the characters shoes. In this instance we empathise with the cubes who are being either bullied or picked on by other cubes in the animations we created so far and wonder how we feel in that position. We switched to the focus of todays assigned exercise or for most people who have already attempted the exercise like myself it would possible grant insight for us to improve.
In this exercise there were different balls for us to use in our animations but the key to this was the weight of the ball itself as this would depict how many bounces and watching visual references would help us depict the material of the ball be it rubber or clay. We were then brought to see a video on the subject of timing and spacing which was a video that we could view on blackboard but as Johnny joked it would put us to sleep, however it showed us how spacing in an animation works and that as Joe told us more frames make a slow stop motion piece whilst fewer would create a faster pace of animation. The key to elements like the bouncing ball would be the arcs in the bouncing of the ball itself.
However we needed to make sure that when doing our work we didn't get too distracted since when we started making a ball it is a likely hood that we would get distracted, this I could understand as when doing blog posts or Maya work I get distracted by the internet or wanting to do illustration work of my own. In addition Johnny mentioned that there was no such thing as multi tasking in animation as when we switch from an unfinished task to a new one we loose time on the current task and the story that we were telling within the story we were trying to complete by a designated deadline which did make sense.
In the bouncing ball animations there are two forces at work momentum vs gravity the video told us that different balls have different momentums when being slowed by gravity after the fall. Some examples are of the following;
- Golf ball- Small and light- high bounces.
- Bouncing Ball- small lighter and rubber- faster motion of bouncing
- Beach ball light- spaced bounces
- Bowling ball heavy - less bounces
When doing the bouncing balls we had to stick to a basic motto observe, translate, animate which meant observing the bounces and speed of the ball then translating it into maya and then animating it and that each ball had its own beat when bouncing and the very rhythm of the ball is the timing of the bounces and speed. The balls speed would be the fastest when hitting the ground and then slower as it bounced, and the spacing of the ball would be the same time but different spaces within the bouncing effect. This was good to take in as it would help me to further refine my animation process within my maya and 2D pieces of animation one piece of advice was acting out the bouncing with a ball and taking reference footage so that we could later look back at it when doing the animation.
Later on in the course of the lesson we showed off our animation work to the group and I began with my Block interaction in stop motion followed by the bouncing ball in maya. Upon showing the block interaction Joe's feedback was that it was slightly too fast in terms of the timing and that in this area of the module it was okay that we didn't remove the rigs from the animation, but the main improvement would be slowing down the speed within the animation so that the audience could see it better. In terms of the bouncing ball which was my first attempt at the exercise so I welcomed the feedback and Johnny mentioned about the lack of what was said today in terms of the bouncing positions and arcs within the ball bouncing and how it seemed to slow down too soon within the animation and I was wondering how you would present the bouncing ball in terms of speed and thankfully for this occasion I'd saved the maya file of this animation and Johnny showed me a way of sharpening the bounces by making the lines within the graph editor look more sharp rather than just wave lines. This was something I would need to revisit in my second attempt at the bouncing ball.
I wanted to show my 2d animation bouncing ball however there wasn't time and so we watched other students work in the exercises. Whilst watching the exercises I saw that many ball bouncing animations were done in stop motion and using the camera lens cap and it made me wonder why I never considered the possibility of using the lens cap as I though ball bouncing in stop motion wasn't possible, this was something I would need to look at for this afternoon. Whilst looking at more and more of the animations it was clear that others like myself hated using maya and were still having a difficult time understanding the software, but we were told it does get easier overtime though I did have my doubts it did seem a likely hood as I found using photoshop difficult at first but in time it got easier to use. However this was natural and this was the point of the module having these quick exercises in animation help show our understanding of the subject, they didn't need to be perfect we just needed to as Johnny told us do the exercises and hand them in for assessment and feed back if we had time left we could go back and refine the animations that we created. This was something that I took away from this session and that ball bouncing in stopmotion was indeed possible.
One thing that I had to consider for the ball bouncing was that the key to the ball bouncing was within the arcs of the movement. I may consider doing a different type of ball bouncing for my second attempt at this exercise. One thing that had me confused and interested was that we could try using sound in Maya with a program called Adobe Audition CC which was a surprise and in this we could try to analyse the movements in the animation and that we could read audio in After Effects to get it to animate. This was of course an element that would be covered at a later date.
Looking back at this session of animation 101 I would think that I've gained a better insight into the ball exercise and hope to refine my understanding of the ball movement and bounce in the animation process. I decided to work on doing a stop motion of the ball bouncing exercise but sadly I couldn't book a camera for later on in the day so I would need to return at a later date to do the exercise. Otherwise I was satisfied with the feedback given to me and what I learned today in the session.
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