EDIT: Everything should be working again, please let me know if there are any errors. Thanks!
Since I'm switching between hosts I need to rebuild my website folders and upload everything. So the clips for critique, as well as the scripts and the syllabus are offline right now, but they will be ready by tonight.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
I will also update the critique posts with new stuff.
Cheers
Jean-Denis
Check out this reel, in the middle, there are some good walk cycle examples.
This is a gif I found by Ron over at this very constructive animation thread on cgsociety.
This little animation perfectly illustrates the results of how spacing affects your animation.
I highly recommend using the dry erase marker on your screen. Track the trajectory and spacing of your bouncing ball, or your swinging arm in a walkcycle, or the tip of a sword in a physical exercise.
Whatever you track needs to have an even and or gradual spacing from frame to frame, depending on what your intentions is in your shot. If your dots are one thumb size apart and then suddenly 3 times bigger, then back to normal, than back to big, then something is wrong and your animation will look choppy, with lots of hiccups.
I talked about arcs before and will elaborate on it later on as you get into your flower sack animation or performance animation.
Basically everything moves in arcs, no matter what, except robots. So when you track your parts of the character, then as you connect the dots with a line, it should show a line that's smooth in terms of curves. Either it's going to be flat (ball rolling from left to right on an even floor), or in a figure 8 arc, or just an arched arc. But you won't have a line that has a sudden linear change, like an L, where it goes down and then suddenly to the right, unless your object hits a solid wall. Or a ball bounces of somewhere (floor or wall or object).
Image from "The Principles of Animation"
@ www.evl.uic.edu
Hey boys and girls,
I wanted to apologize to those students who had to wait so long for the critique. I need to be more consistent with the time I allocate to each student. We are a big class, so unfortunately time is precious and gets used up very quickly. I will try to keep it to 5min each in order to make sure that everybody can go home at 10pm. Once I'm done with everybody I can go back to those students who need more help.
For that to work I need you guys to have quicktimes ready for critique, but more importantly you need actual work to show. When it's your turn and I hear that you had problems with your shot, then I'm wondering why you didn't email me once you had those problems during the week. Unless you have those problems Sunday night, you shouldn't be waiting til next class. The moment you are stuck, email me.
For those students who didn't make it today, please email me your work so you don't fall behind schedule.
Speaking of schedule. Please have character balls with tails ready for next week if you didn't today. If you are using your own schedule or are ahead of schedule, show me your latest character assignment of blocking of the flower sack (choose one clear emotion).
Please bring your latest and greatest of each assignment, because next week I need to grade all of you in terms of your progress.
If you have any questions, don't hesitate and email me.
Cheers
Jean-Denis
Alright, nice work! Very cool!
Let's start with...
Big Small Ball:
- Very good, nice touch with the stripe on the ball, the left little ball bounces with the big one hitting the floor, cool! The heavy ball is good, the right one is good too. One little thing is how far screen right the ball is bouncing after it hits the big one. Basically from frame 49 to 61, because after 62 is slows down again. So just look at your curve, there might be a sharper dip suddenly during those frames. But you got it otherwise. You can fix it if you want to, or if you want to concentrate on the tail ball that's fine too.
Heavy Bouncing Ball:
- If you label it Heavy, then you'd have to adjust the bounces at bit. Heavy is more what you had in the "Big Small Ball" clip. Apart from that, there is some spacing issue on frame 13 and on. The spacing from 12 to 13 is a bit big. It looks like the ball is being sucked down, not falling down due to gravity. So, the ball is a bit too light for "heavy", and the bounces get very quick after frame 12.
Light Balloon:
- FINAL! Nice job!
Medium Bouncing Ball:
- FINAL!
Tail:
- Good start. Two things: One, my first impression was that the little guy is happily joining his big friend, but the big guy is sad. The little guy then gets closer to comfort him. Is that it? The story didn't jump out immediatly, so I think it could be a bit clearer. Like making the big ball sigh.
The other thing is the tail. Right now it looks like a fish tail flapping. If this is your choice, then okay. I can show you tomorrow a different approach to tails. You can check out Simon's ball bounce at www.simonchristen.com for example.
