BOUNCING BALL

In the first week we learnt how to Animate a bouncing ball by making key frames in the timeline. We were also shown how to alter the characteristics of those key frames within the graph editor. Below is a completed ball bounce that doesn't use the graph editor in any way. I just wanted to do a simple bounce of a ball that looks like it's quite heavy.

Below, is a bouncing ball that makes use of the graph editor and the squash/stretch handle. It's a ball that squashes when dropped from a tall height but looses its squishyness the lower its bounce arc gets.

TRAVELLING BOUNCE/ROTATION

I made another simple ball bounce animation using keyframes but had it travelling across the screen instead of bouncing on the spot. 

I then used the graph editor to alter its motion and bounce arcs.

After this, I used the ghosting and motion trail functions to review the path that the ball was taking. Here, I made a few tweaks to the arcs.

Lastly, I put on a ramp texture and keyframed in rotations on the x-axis using the timeline.

USING RECORDED FILM FOOTAGE

In one of our lessons, we were shown how to import movie footage into Maya for reference and guidance. In class, I managed to animate a bouncing ball over the footage but when I took it home and opened the file, it wasn't bouncing in the same position that the ball was. 

I used the graph editor to move the position of all the keyframes to closer match the rhythm that the basketball bounces in. 

BALL & TAIL

I attempted to animate a bouncing ball with a tail. I used 4 spheres and parented the 3 smaller spheres to the main sphere. After that, I parented the smaller spheres to each other.

I animated the Main Parent (large sphere) all the way to the end of the timeline, then went back and animated the smaller spheres. It didn't come out exactly as I wanted and I wasn't sure if this method was the best way to do overlapping animation, but I wanted to try it myself with the tools I had learnt so far before going to research an easier/better way to do it.

Below is the ball and tail animation I made with the rig we were provided with. It came out quite bad because at the time I was unaware that I had to keyframe all the movements before adding any squash and stretch to the character. Doing it the other way around caused the tail to go in directions that I hadn't keyframed it to.

After my formative assessment, I was given some advice so I went back and tried to do another one. I still found it quite difficult but then realised what I was doing wrong. I had been keyframing the base, middle and end tail sections all on the same frames. So they were all moving to the same timing which didn't make the tail move/follow like a tail naturally would. The principles of overlapping and follow through were absent. I made adjustments to it after noticing that and animated the base, then the middle then the end on keys that were 3-5 frames after the previous handle. Could still make lots of improvements with the graph editor, but I understand the concept much better now.

WALK/RUN CYCLE

I found doing the walk cycles the most enjoyable. I was quite familiar with doing walk cycles in 2D so I was curious to see how difficult I would find the transition. Granted, it was a bit of a headache at first but I learnt how important it is to get the foundation and key poses correct. Everything is made less troublesome if when that was done properly. 

Below are my walk cycles. One without squash and stretch, the other with it. I also did a run cycle, just for practice purposes. With all of these cycles, I can see how much more I can add to them. Mainly with feet pivots, the legs pointing in towards the center with each step. I could also play with the arcs a lot more in the graph editor. 

Below is my personality walk using the Digital Tutors rig. I based the walk off of these sketches that I made in class. In the drawing, the character was supposed to be walking quite slow and lazily, with his knees and head leading the walk. But when animating it, it turned into a more angry "i'm coming to get you" type walk. 

STORYBOARD

Below is the storyboard for the interaction between the walking man and the ball and tail.

HOW TO BE A VILLAIN - PRODUCTION PROCESS

http://charlestemowo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/how-to-be-villain-stage-six-storyboard.html

Animating

Scenes put into Toon Boom

Dropbox Sharing

Drawing on top of the storyboard

Coloring 

Adding backgrounds

Adding Shadows

Sony Vegas Composition

COMVIS - ANIMATING BACKGROUND POSITION 

for my final experiment, I animated individual layers to give the illusion that the character was actually walking, when instead, the character was just walking in the same spot on a loop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xxgw9fXLwSc

COM VIS - WALKING IN AND OUT OF LIGHT

In this experiment, I had the character walking in and out of a spotlight in After Effects

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImbCKo03ivs

COMVIS - PINTOOL AND GLOW EFFECTS

Here, I played around with the pin tool/puppet tool and animated the moon glowing using the keyframes in the timeline.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=294IKbPoLaI

COMVIS - PLAYING WITH LAYERS

I had made a walk cycle for my Pokemon animation so I wanted to take this into Photoshop and after effects to play around with it. Here, I'm making the character walk in and out of a layered background.

  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOHr4cJzjWg

COMVIS - WHAT I'LL BE EXPLORING

For the main bulk of my Visual Communication project, I wanted to play around with lighting, walk cycles, perspective and backgrounds using After Effects.

The footage I decided to play with is from an animation using characters from the 'Pokemon' franchise that I started working on before this course began. Below is a video to the animatic I made for the animation. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4OloRt4vyA