When we get the assignment, all of which are spelled out in the class syllabus, we are given the task and a frame limit. The frame limit is supposed to mimic working in a studio where you are given a specific shot and the amount of frames you have to work your magic. So far it's been 60-120 frames. At 24 frames per second, that's 5 seconds. I was working on this week's assignment a second time, I was warned that my first idea was too away from the assignment's goal. With the new "gag" I came up with I had trouble trying to meet the minimum. I actually managed to finish the original-longer than 120 frames-and redo the new version all last night. Did I mention that I also managed to fix and revise my assignment from last week as well? The most productive three hours of my life or at least the past year.
The best part of AM is that all characters, and balls, in the Class 1 world are provided by the school, granted you use Maya (software), which allows you to focus on the art of animation. I come from a 3d Studio Max background way back to release 2.5 which is about 8-9 years. What is said about animation holds very true, the software doesn't matter how you use it does. It hasn't taken me much time at all to get in the swing of animating, characters or anything else, in Maya. The software is merely a tool just like a pencil is to a traditional animator. An expensive pencil but a pencil none the less.
Now turn off your lights and prepared to be amazed; by bouncing balls. *Warning the first few videos the balls do not squash. They aren't supposed to. Squash and stretch were just introduced in the last videos*
Revision of class 103's ball. The bounces at the end have been cleaned up a bit. Not happy with it.
Class 104 2 ball bounce-two different weights. The heavy ball needs to actually bounce a little and the first two bounces of the little ball need to have the arcs redone. Very sloppy of me.
Class 105 revision fixed/made more of a mess of the above.
Class 105 obstacle course with the squishy, aka advanced, ball.
And now a pause. Lights please. Good. The last one here is the "condensed"/reworked version of the assignment. My original idea would have been about 250 frames once it was properly timed out, it was at 120 frames in a rough blocked form with no sense of real timing applied. The premise being to give my ball a reason for being, such a gracious creator I know. It was a sort of an animated ball homage to cartoons while showing I understood the principles of squash and stretch. Also introduecd as a requirement this week was the rotation of the ball.
Once I realized that there wasn't any real way to take my original plan and make it 120 frames, I took the main gags and condensed it further. Having shave this one down a bit to make it under 120 frames. Luckily I caught a Class 1 Peer Buddy in Israel, early sunday morning, who advised that this "being" and his super squishiness was a bit over-the-top and not what the assignment was looking for. Something I knew but just wanted to hear someone other than the little voice in my head say.
I went to bed Saturday night and thought of the gag above. I probably could have developed it more and not needed to make the ball aware of that fact that the obstacle course was broken. Without the extra part at the end I only had about 45 frames-a ball can only bounce for so long. I animated in a straight-ahead fashion which allowed room for the ending realization. I'll explain this straight-ahead thing in another post I think. It's really just a method of animating. I already no some areas that need fixing and recently realized others.
It turns out that others played "God" and gave their ball the spark of life. I ended up lengthening the long squishy homage to a length that properly ended the animation. And here it is.
The pacing is off and some things could have been exaggerated more. This was a lot longer originally but I like how it turned out.
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