Week 10 of Animation 101 had arrived which meant we were now two weeks away from submitting our work in stopmotion, 2D, and Maya exercises for this module. By now we should've finished our exercises in ball weights and bouncing balls and I had spent last night working on animations for a bowling ball and ping pong balls to get some feedback and advice so that I could refine them later this afternoon. I had gotten some feedback from Johnny about my bowling ball exercise that I posted on Facebook and he said I needed to keep in mind the idea of arcs and sharp bouncing which I carelessly forgot about in my stress to get my work up to date for this week, and make sure I met the brief requirements.
Before reviewing our work Johnny and Joe asked the group if we needed support at this stage of the module and some feedback on our projects and aside from myself there were a few people, though the lack of numbers in the group was a bit of a concern. Joe told us that in our work we needed to produce best we could produce and a reminder that we could also do the optional task of using an armature to do a simple waving exercise in stopmotion which would in turn prepare us for the next semester as that would be when we would look at the matter of figures and puppets in animation work. I had booked out a camera yesterday to do this task and decided to get ahead in the armature animation to give me an idea of what to work with.
In terms of meeting the deadline it was clear that others like myself were feeling the pressure of getting our work finished on time and Johnny and Joe shared some interesting stories about how animators such as Ardman or Cosgrove hall worked in producing their animations to a deadline and how they had to meet their weekly animation quota so to speak. I was amazed to learn that in doing an animation some had to work with seven seconds of animation a day which totalled up to 35 seconds a week and if added up that lead to about 40 seconds a month and I dreaded to think what it would be in a year. Despite this it seems they persist in their work as they understood the process that they were working to and that there came times when they had to increase the amount of work they did in their outputs.
We were reminded that the tasks issued to us were not vast and had to be achieved to a standard of 3-4 attempts at the exercises in the animations that we did. We were also told of some short cuts in Maya that we could use in our work to speed up the process and in terms in Maya we had to render at least three of our animations instead of using a pixelated preview we would have a perfected quality to the pieces. This was an element to be covered in the final week of the module. On the subject at hand we were reminded that we had to push the boat out on our work even add elements like walls or even work with elements like the pendulums in our work which meant thinking outside the box in terms of ideas and processes in our work.
We were then introduced to the element of supply and demand for animators and staggeringly the supply of animators was big but in terms of the demand it was very small. This made it all the more important that we made ourselves stand out in terms of our portfolios or styles of animations to gain the attention of animation industry or even the BBC. Given how some of us would possibly be having difficulties the staff would offer to help us with an issues in the weeks if we really need it.
We then moved onto showing our work and I went up first showing my animations from last night and last week such as my bowling ball, ping pong and remake of anticipation and followthrough. In this I received feedback and advice on what to improve and reflect upon such as remembering to do the sharp bounces in the graph editor for the bowling ball animation even being shown a trick on how to piece the bounce nodes closer together to create an influence of weight and speed, which was something that I took note of when remaking or refining one of my ball bounces. In the ping pong ball Joe advised that I should keep my animation within the canvas screen as having it bounce out wasn't the best of ideas and that I was possibly using the wrong program but this was something to think about and even consider learning how to use animate better for elements like this and even do a remake over the next week. The key element that I needed to remember was speed and weight in the ball.
One thing that James pointed out was that sometimes we can't trust our reference videos and as Joe pointed out we need to deeply analyse the ball bouncing videos and get a better idea of how many bounces even time them with a stopwatch to see how many seconds it took before the bouncing came to a halt. Upon receiving this information we were reminded that its important to plan and schedule our work so that we don't fall behind or have to reassess anything in our work even during the summer which would be the worst thing that could possibly happen, and a failure to hand in our work reduces our marks even if its not our best work.
With the feedback I received I decide to try and revisit some of my animations in Maya, such as the bouncing ball and use what I learned to try and refine or remake them. I decided to start with my bowling ball animation piece with the given advice from Johnny. Using the selection tool I selected the key bouncing frames and made them a bit closer to the falling key frames of the ball to make them quicker in bouncing upon contact with the ground. One thing that Joe pointed out was that the key was speed and gravity and so the ball couldn't hover in place as it was doing in this animation so I tried to correct this by straightening out the falling frame to show some speed and this seemed to eliminate the issue of the ball hovering above the ground.
When doing the animations I was reminded that some of my works such as the anticipation and follow through pieces did go through the grid slightly and that I needed to be mindful of this in the future. Joe and James advised that I should look at the piece from an angle so that I can see if the bounce is going through the grid or not. as seen above
With the bowling ball refined I worked on applying the close frames idea to one of my bouncing ball animations to show the influence of a rubber ball bouncing which I did at the start of the ball bouncing exercises and decided to make use of the speed method that Johnny showed me in regards the bowling ball. The idea being that the bouncing rubber ball had speed when it was bouncing up and down on the wooden floor from the reference video that I was looking at. From the fall of the ball I used the selection tool in the animations graph editor and carefully moved the bouncing key frames closer together to create the illusion of speed within the bounces and looking back at the reference video it seemed to replicate the speed of the bounce but needed to slowdown when the ball was coming to a hault.
Therefore I extended some of the frames to show the ball slowing down slightly so the balls bouncing would decrease. However I didn't want to have it hover too much so they maintained some closer proximity to the other key frames. I then looked over the bouncing ball animation and applied refinements as I tried to get the timing correct in the bouncing and the speed in the bounces.
Refinement 1
refinement 2:
refinement 3:
refinement 4:
However When playing it back I couldn't help but notice there was a slight jump within the bouncing. To be certain I asked Joe for a second opinion and he told me the possible issue was the fact I had too many bounces within my bouncing ball despite the fact I counted about 15 bounces from the video. Joe suggested I studied the reference video closely and mimic the bounces with my hand and time how long the bounces take then translate it to the animation. Given this advice I decided to start again, and see if I could get it right. Following earlier advice I looked at the animation from a side on perspective this way I could see if the ball was passing through the grid or not.
I looked to the reference video that I was using before in this exercise : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY3TrpiUOqE
This time using my phones stopwatch I timed the video of the ball bouncing to about 10 seconds and counted out the bounces which were about 16 like before and despite this I tried the bouncing again but as I placed in the bounces and key frames it wasn't looking like a rubber ball but more of a beach ball like effect. I consulted with James and he said that this sort of bounce would be the most difficult to try and replicate in Maya but I decided to try. Sadly though there wasn't enough time in the lesson so I decided to do this for independent study, over the next week.
Looking back on this session its clear that we would need to try and put more effort into the animations that we created in maya and 2D. Thankfully I felt that I had gotten the feedback that I needed to try and refine my ball bouncing animations and this time I would remember the element of arcing in the graph editor and perhaps consider not doing the animations so late at night where my focus won't be as dim or unfocused to produce a better quality result. In conclusion it looks like that it would be all hands on deck to get the animations in Maya, 2D and stop motions completed and refined before our hand in date for this module and semester. I was slightly feeling on edge and nervous but I had to try and break through those barriers and persist no matter what.
Before reviewing our work Johnny and Joe asked the group if we needed support at this stage of the module and some feedback on our projects and aside from myself there were a few people, though the lack of numbers in the group was a bit of a concern. Joe told us that in our work we needed to produce best we could produce and a reminder that we could also do the optional task of using an armature to do a simple waving exercise in stopmotion which would in turn prepare us for the next semester as that would be when we would look at the matter of figures and puppets in animation work. I had booked out a camera yesterday to do this task and decided to get ahead in the armature animation to give me an idea of what to work with.
In terms of meeting the deadline it was clear that others like myself were feeling the pressure of getting our work finished on time and Johnny and Joe shared some interesting stories about how animators such as Ardman or Cosgrove hall worked in producing their animations to a deadline and how they had to meet their weekly animation quota so to speak. I was amazed to learn that in doing an animation some had to work with seven seconds of animation a day which totalled up to 35 seconds a week and if added up that lead to about 40 seconds a month and I dreaded to think what it would be in a year. Despite this it seems they persist in their work as they understood the process that they were working to and that there came times when they had to increase the amount of work they did in their outputs.
We were reminded that the tasks issued to us were not vast and had to be achieved to a standard of 3-4 attempts at the exercises in the animations that we did. We were also told of some short cuts in Maya that we could use in our work to speed up the process and in terms in Maya we had to render at least three of our animations instead of using a pixelated preview we would have a perfected quality to the pieces. This was an element to be covered in the final week of the module. On the subject at hand we were reminded that we had to push the boat out on our work even add elements like walls or even work with elements like the pendulums in our work which meant thinking outside the box in terms of ideas and processes in our work.
We were then introduced to the element of supply and demand for animators and staggeringly the supply of animators was big but in terms of the demand it was very small. This made it all the more important that we made ourselves stand out in terms of our portfolios or styles of animations to gain the attention of animation industry or even the BBC. Given how some of us would possibly be having difficulties the staff would offer to help us with an issues in the weeks if we really need it.
We then moved onto showing our work and I went up first showing my animations from last night and last week such as my bowling ball, ping pong and remake of anticipation and followthrough. In this I received feedback and advice on what to improve and reflect upon such as remembering to do the sharp bounces in the graph editor for the bowling ball animation even being shown a trick on how to piece the bounce nodes closer together to create an influence of weight and speed, which was something that I took note of when remaking or refining one of my ball bounces. In the ping pong ball Joe advised that I should keep my animation within the canvas screen as having it bounce out wasn't the best of ideas and that I was possibly using the wrong program but this was something to think about and even consider learning how to use animate better for elements like this and even do a remake over the next week. The key element that I needed to remember was speed and weight in the ball.
One thing that James pointed out was that sometimes we can't trust our reference videos and as Joe pointed out we need to deeply analyse the ball bouncing videos and get a better idea of how many bounces even time them with a stopwatch to see how many seconds it took before the bouncing came to a halt. Upon receiving this information we were reminded that its important to plan and schedule our work so that we don't fall behind or have to reassess anything in our work even during the summer which would be the worst thing that could possibly happen, and a failure to hand in our work reduces our marks even if its not our best work.
With the feedback I received I decide to try and revisit some of my animations in Maya, such as the bouncing ball and use what I learned to try and refine or remake them. I decided to start with my bowling ball animation piece with the given advice from Johnny. Using the selection tool I selected the key bouncing frames and made them a bit closer to the falling key frames of the ball to make them quicker in bouncing upon contact with the ground. One thing that Joe pointed out was that the key was speed and gravity and so the ball couldn't hover in place as it was doing in this animation so I tried to correct this by straightening out the falling frame to show some speed and this seemed to eliminate the issue of the ball hovering above the ground.
With the bowling ball refined I worked on applying the close frames idea to one of my bouncing ball animations to show the influence of a rubber ball bouncing which I did at the start of the ball bouncing exercises and decided to make use of the speed method that Johnny showed me in regards the bowling ball. The idea being that the bouncing rubber ball had speed when it was bouncing up and down on the wooden floor from the reference video that I was looking at. From the fall of the ball I used the selection tool in the animations graph editor and carefully moved the bouncing key frames closer together to create the illusion of speed within the bounces and looking back at the reference video it seemed to replicate the speed of the bounce but needed to slowdown when the ball was coming to a hault.
Therefore I extended some of the frames to show the ball slowing down slightly so the balls bouncing would decrease. However I didn't want to have it hover too much so they maintained some closer proximity to the other key frames. I then looked over the bouncing ball animation and applied refinements as I tried to get the timing correct in the bouncing and the speed in the bounces.
Refinement 1
refinement 2:
However When playing it back I couldn't help but notice there was a slight jump within the bouncing. To be certain I asked Joe for a second opinion and he told me the possible issue was the fact I had too many bounces within my bouncing ball despite the fact I counted about 15 bounces from the video. Joe suggested I studied the reference video closely and mimic the bounces with my hand and time how long the bounces take then translate it to the animation. Given this advice I decided to start again, and see if I could get it right. Following earlier advice I looked at the animation from a side on perspective this way I could see if the ball was passing through the grid or not.
I looked to the reference video that I was using before in this exercise : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY3TrpiUOqE
This time using my phones stopwatch I timed the video of the ball bouncing to about 10 seconds and counted out the bounces which were about 16 like before and despite this I tried the bouncing again but as I placed in the bounces and key frames it wasn't looking like a rubber ball but more of a beach ball like effect. I consulted with James and he said that this sort of bounce would be the most difficult to try and replicate in Maya but I decided to try. Sadly though there wasn't enough time in the lesson so I decided to do this for independent study, over the next week.
Looking back on this session its clear that we would need to try and put more effort into the animations that we created in maya and 2D. Thankfully I felt that I had gotten the feedback that I needed to try and refine my ball bouncing animations and this time I would remember the element of arcing in the graph editor and perhaps consider not doing the animations so late at night where my focus won't be as dim or unfocused to produce a better quality result. In conclusion it looks like that it would be all hands on deck to get the animations in Maya, 2D and stop motions completed and refined before our hand in date for this module and semester. I was slightly feeling on edge and nervous but I had to try and break through those barriers and persist no matter what.
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