3 Bouncing Balls

Alright, the semester hasn't begun yet and we are already starting critiques!! Way to go!

Overall it looks great. Nitpicky as I am, there are few things that stood out.

Trap Door Ball:
- once it hits the floor it keeps rolling til around 238 or so (I'm at work, I can't step frame through it...). I would stop the roll a lot sooner, because the ball feels really heavy, there is almost no bouncing after the impact, so unless the floor is uneven (which it doesn't look like it) it should stop rolling pretty soon, just like a bowling ball.

Bouncy Ball:
- all good til frame 57 or so, it seems to slow down a lot, as if it starts rolling onto sand. Check your curves and adjust the translation so that the speed change isn't as abrupt.

Balloon Ball:
- that's a personal preference and what you have is not wrong, but I expected the ball to hit the little one at frame 231 instead of going past it. Again, nothing wrong with it, would add a nice touch and complexity to the piece. But your mechanics are good, it's not a required change, totally up to you.
- what I WOULD change is the ball's rotation from frame 261 on, it suddenly stops going clockwise and then continues at frame 293, keep it consistent
- when the ball hits the wall at frame 363 it keeps rotating clockwise for a while til the next bounce, I would go into the counterclockwise rotation a bit sooner

All in all, good stuff, you're ready to move on to whatever you want to do. You mentioned an audio clip for a one person dialogue. Sounds good. Bring in at least 5 different audio clips. Check out this post for the guidelines.

Make sure that you don't neglect the human mechanics. I know everybody wants to jump into acting, but ball physics is not the only basic element you should master before delving into dialogue shots.

Tata
Jean-Denis

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Part 1-Interview with Bobby Beck, Shawn Kelly and Carlos Baena of AnimationMentor.com

Watch it here.

Important part during the interview: Just because a company doesn't get back to you after you sent your reel to them doesn't mean that you are not good enough, but that the company is looking for a specific resume. If a company is not looking for what you're offering (no matter how good you are), then you won't get hired.

I found it on the "squash & stretch" blog by Randolf Dimalanta.

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Room Change!!

I mentioned that our room with two people per computer could prove to be a bit frustrating and what do you know, 30mins after my email to Chris Armstrong I got a response saying that the new class room will be in 806. Thanks so much Mr. Armstrong, that was quick action taken there.

I think the room I had last semester was 805 (which was great) and the rooms on the 8th floor seemed pretty big. I haven't seen 806, but I think it's going to be like 805 (if anybody can confirm that, I'd appreciate it, I can't go downtown this week to check).

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Full House

So I got my new faculty ID and checked in at the 180 just to see if there are any class updates. You'll see the day, time and room number at the top of the page.

To my surprise the school added one more student to the class.

Now, it's nothing personal and I am really excited that so many people want to be in my class. I'm just afraid that time will be very tight. We are now 20 students in a room with 10 PCs. I will have to figure things out so that I can really spend enough time with each of you guys (and girls of course).

If you want a head start, you can already start working on the bouncing ball assignment (which EVERY student will have to do). Here the description from a previous post (or rant):

What is required is an understanding of the basic mechanics. Your first assignment will be a bouncing ball. EVERYBODY will have do this. The only exception are students who can show me their balls (zing!) during the first class. I need to see a heavy, medium and light ball. No character, just pure physics. If you can't sell the weight of a simple ball, I most certainly won't let you do a two character dialogue shot. If you want to really convince me, then have the balls fall from left to right (or right to left, or bouncing of walls, objects, etc. anything that's beyond the simple up and down the Y axis) and add a tail to them. So if you have a squishy rubber ball with a tail, you'll be able to show me believable weight, squash & stretch and overlapping actions with the tail. If that is the case, you can move on, if not, keep practicing until you get it (I'll obviously help you with it).

If you know other students who will be in this class, please tell them about this site and this assignment, spread the word. :)

Thanks guys and girls and see you next week!!

Tata
Jean-Denis

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