Project #7: Posing and Bouncing Ball

• "It's all in the Timing and the Spacing" pg. 42-46 of PDF (pg. 35-39 of book)
• "More on Spacing" pg. 90-101 of PDF (pg. 84-95 of book)

1. Squash and stretch
   • Example: bouncing ball - without | with
2. Anticipation
   • Example: punch - without | with
3. Staging
4. Pose-to-pose action & straight-ahead action
   • Pose-to-pose action example: Lt. Dan jump
5. Follow-through action & overlapping action
   • Overlapping action example: three-linked pendulum - without | with
   • Follow-through/overlap example: Lt. Dan tail jump (see tail on landing)
6. Slow-in and slow-out
   • Example: pendulum stopping - without | with
7. Arcs
   • Example: simple head turn
8. Secondary action
9. Timing
   • Example: Lt. Dan jump - bad timing | good timing (or at the least better timing)
10. Exaggeration
11. Solid modeling and rigging, or Solid Drawing
12. Character personality, Appeal

Additional Reading & Reference:

• Animation in Maya 7.0 from Alias. (Keep in mind we're currently using Maya 2008...)
  • 1: Animation Basics
  • 2: Keyframe Animation
  • 4: Path Animation
• tutorial4.pdf - old tutorial, it but has good deformer information
• Video Demo: \\preproduction\course_material\demos_and_lectures - bouncing_ball_demo_11.30.05.mp4
  This is a really good motion demo from a previous class.

Part 1: Posing a Character

Posing characters will help your understanding of balance and weight placement on a character. As we did in class, try to mimic these actions yourself so you can feel (rather than imagine) the position the character is supposed to be in.

For each of these positions, pay attention to where the weight of your character is placed. If the exercise calls for the character to stand on one foot, then how much weight will one leg hold and what must the other body parts do in order for the character maintain its balance?

When you pose the characters, you should work from a locked camera to achieve the best line of action and silhouette, but it is good practice to look at the character from all viewpoints to check balance. If the character does not look balanced, alter it until it is correct.

What to do:

• You will be using the "Basic Guy" rig for this part of the assignment (and only this rig). You can grab a copy of it here. After extracting the RAR file, the rig will be in the scenes folder.
• Pose your character in the following positions:
  1. Carrying a box that is...
     • ...light (examples)
     • ...heavy (examples)
  2. Balancing with one leg...
     • ...in front of the character (examples)
     • ...lifted up high to the character's side (examples)
  3. Pulling a rope (examples)
  4. Pushing something large and heavy while facing towards the object (examples)
  5. A pose that conveys the emotion of being...
     • ...angry (examples)
     • ...frightened (examples)
• NOTE: These are NOT listed options to choose from! All poses must be completed!
• Draw a series of thumbnails for each pose to explore your options. Your first idea will generally be your worst idea. Cliché poses are a good place to start when brainstorming but try to stay away from them.

Turn-in:

• 8 jpegs at a resolution of 800x600 (for 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, 3, 4, 5a, 5b)
• 2 turntable playblasts for poses 2a and 2b. Here is a short tutorial on how to do turntable playblasts.
• Thumbnail drawings representing the curves of motion.
• Label each file with your name and description in a labeled folder Be sure to name your files: "lastname_firstname_projectname".mb or .ma, "lastname_firstname_projectname".jpg NO SPACES IN NAMING.

You will be graded on Balance/Weight, Line of Action, Appeal, Creativity, and Thumbnails (these don't have to be pretty).

Part 2: Bouncing Ball

Find two balls of different weights -- the bigger the contrast in weight the better. You will be using these as reference. Plan each exercise on paper before beginning - this may feel like a waste of time, but it will help you finish faster, easier, and with better results. (Planning sheet examples found HERE and HERE) Make sure you animate at 30 frames per second, and it usually helps to set playback to realtime. These settings can be found in your preferences under 'Settings' and 'Timeline'.

Download the ball file HERE

Go through the ball tutorial HERE

What to do:

1. Animate both balls in the same scene with no forward momentum. (only animating y-translation.)
   • Pay attention to timing and spacing
   • Include squash and stretch
2. Animate both balls in the same scene with forward momentum, and have them slow to a stop.
   • Find some way of showing the rotation of the ball (texturing or wire frame.)
   • Pay attention to arcs.
3. Animate a ball with intent and emotion. Tell a story with a ball as the character. Every action the ball makes should have a reason and you should be able to see the ball thinking.
   • Apply all the principles learned in the bouncing ball as well as anticipation.
   • Here is a good example of bouncing balls showing character and telling a story. Though you don't have to do anything this elaborate, keep in mind the ways in which the balls move, anticipate, and interact as characters.

Tips:

• Plan - your planning sheet should have everything you will need to know. You should, in theory, be able to animate without ever referring back to your reference - just to your planning sheet.
• Use reference!!
• You generally shouldn't see squash and stretch when played at full speed, but you should be able to feel it.
• Try not to spend too much time in the Graph Editor. Focus on what your animation looks like, not what the curves look like. Don't be afraid to add more keys or breakdowns.
• Start with your keyframes first! Get those right, then add breakdowns (keys further defining the motion between your keyframes) as you need them.
• The more keys you have the harder it is to change motion - so be deliberate about what you key and when.
• And as always: save iterations! You especially want to save an iteration when all of your key poses are set, before moving on to clean up the graph editor and adding in-betweens (basically another word for "breakdowns).

Playblasting:

Turn-in:

• Playblast the two bouncing balls from an orthographic view (1 and 2). You can use any camera perspective for the ball with emotion (3). Put these three playblasts in the turn-in folder. Do NOT turn in renders.
• Three .mb files corresponding to the playblasts.
• Planning sheets (you can scan these in on the Mac in the corner of the room)
• Please name your files lastname_firstname_projectname.mb