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Rest of the animation sets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xI6ZQS3B9E&list=PL2R-5mFLHBykkZ9akazWpYThMENXBeoiB

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Character shifting weight from one side to another.

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Character shifting weight to right foot.

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Animation of character pushing a block.

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Animation of character lifting a ball.

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Final character jumping animation.

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Blocking pass for character jumping animation

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Reflection Post

There are 12 basic principles of animations that heavily affect the outcome of any animations created. This includes squash and stretch, anticipation, staging, straight ahead and pose to pose, follow through, slow in and out, arcs, secondary actions, timing, exaggeration, solid drawing, and appeal. Throughout the semester, most these basic principles were used to created multiple animations which will be disscused during this reflection.

Firstly the squash and stretch principle was used throughout the first couple ball boucnign animations shown in this blog. This principle talks about how an object or shape deforms to signify the state of the animation. This principle heavily affects bouncing balls beacuse of the nature of how balls deform when they bounce. Using this principle, the type of ball, weight of the ball, speed of the ball, and much more can be conveyed within an animation. This is evident in the 3 types of balls falling post earlier this semester. 

Next there is the anticipation principle. This principle helps smooth out an object's or person's movement in an animation. For example, in cartoon animations, when a character is about to run, they usually drag they arms and legs back before sprinting ahead. This part of animation helps the audience anticipate the characters movement and helps them follow along.

Staging is another principle that is used throughout animation. The idea of this principle is to create a scene where the audience is able to follow the actions and environments of the animation as intended by the animator. This is done so that there aren't too many things happening within the scene as to distract the audience from the main action or purpose of the scene.

Straight ahead and pose to pose principle talks about the basic idea of how the animation is drawn or animated. Straight ahead animation is done where the each frame is animated one after the other, whereas pose to pose animation animates using key poses throughout the animation and then going back and filling in the gaps between the key poses. This principle was used in the character jumping animation. The blocking pass shows each of the key poses throughout the jumping animtion.

The follow through principle mostly affects the animation after major actions compared to anticipation was is before. Given that each moving object has momentum, realistic animation should also consider momentum in each action. With this in mind, follow through principle talks about the after movement or animation of, let's say a person, after they stop. The body should drag on a bit after, and if the person is wearing anything, the object should not stop at the same time. This gives the animation more realistic feel compared to a robotic outcome if done without it. The character jumping animation shows this principle in action.

Slow in and slow out principle is another principle that showcases momentum in animations. Objects or people in animations shouldn't be moving at a constant rate. They should build up momentum and increase in speed. This also applys to stopping, hence the name, slow in and slow out. Arcs principle determines the movement of an object or person. If a person is moving their hands and feet, they should be moving in an arc so that the movement doesn't look mechanical. This is because natural movement often follows arcs defined by joints, gravity, etc. WIthout it, the movement would look unrealistic and fake.

The Secondary animation principle is usuallly used to support main actions done by a character. It helps convey emotions and/or environment that that character is in. This could be in the form of facial expressions, additional smaller movements and much more.

Timing is a principle that affects how the animation is done. It refers to the number of frames that animation has. This could convey the speed of an action or how smooth the animation's end result is. Exaggeration principle simply highlights actions that a character has taken. This animation is not usually realistic but it helps audience understand what is happening in the animation.

Solid drawing is usually used in 3d drawing animations to help improve line work for the animations. It could help give a sense of realism in a 3D environment or give an object more form. Appeal talks about characteristics of characters in animations to help differiaciate characters between each other. This includes highlighting unique parts of each characters like large heads or skinny figure, etc.

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Final version of a relaxed head turn. In order to create a less robotic motion, I edited the timing of the y rotate so that it does not match the x rotate. This meant that the motion would reflect that of an arc.

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Finalized version of the the pendulum swing. Reduced the pause at the end of each swing. Slowed the end segment down a little.

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First version of the pendulum swing. As seen in the video above, the motion is very mechanical and the pauses are unrealistic. The timing of the last segment of the pendulum is slightly too quick.

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Final version of the bouncing ball animation. I added a little anticipation before the actual jump to create a more realistic motion.

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My first version of the ball jumping over the gap. I made use of the previous bouncing ball animation to animate this motion. However, it still looks slightly unrealistic.

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First version of the surprised head turn. The turn consists of turning the head, blinking, and a change in facial expression. The hardest part of this exercise is to create a realistic motion in terms of the turn. I did refer to videos of head turns to develop a more realistic motion, which helped a lot.

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After adding in the horizontal movement for each ball. The process was rather simple but I still had to determine the distance each of the different types of ball would travel.

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Finished animation of the 3 balls bouncing. The balls are soccer ball, bowling ball, bouncy ball respectively. While polishing this animation, I found myself gathering a bunch of balls around my house and bouncing them to see how they react. This allowed me to recreate it easier in animation form. 

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The second iteration of the bouncy ball animation. This time, the stretch animation was removed because it made the ball too unrealistic. A squash animation was also added for the last bounce which was missed previously. However, the ball’s movement still felt robotic and linear.