Version 18
Altered the distance the shuttlecock travels after the first bounce and tried to tweak the rotation a little so that it makes more sense with how it lands.
I don't even know if I like it or not. I don't know if something about it is bothering me or if I just can't think of anything more to do to it. I don't know if I like the timing. I don't know if it looks right anymore. Ahhh!!
I think it's time to leave this one for today.
Showing posts with label shuttlecock. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shuttlecock. Show all posts
Saturday, 31 March 2012
Shuttlecock V16
Version 16
I skewed the angle of the shuttlecock's flight very very slightly so that it's less of a straight line. It's not too noticeable but to be honest I'm reluctant to muck around with it too much... which I know is stupid.
I'm not sure about the weird spinny/roll thing at the very end, looks a bit off to me somehow? Maybe it's not too bad. Just feels a bit sudden, or for some reason I feel like it should go in the other direction. Not sure.
The flip is a little problematic; it kind of changes direction as it flips and the cork starts pointing straight ahead again during one part. It's a bit awkward to alter and difficult to keep consistent!
Still, at least it's getting there. Hopefully I can have it finished by today...
I skewed the angle of the shuttlecock's flight very very slightly so that it's less of a straight line. It's not too noticeable but to be honest I'm reluctant to muck around with it too much... which I know is stupid.
I'm not sure about the weird spinny/roll thing at the very end, looks a bit off to me somehow? Maybe it's not too bad. Just feels a bit sudden, or for some reason I feel like it should go in the other direction. Not sure.
The flip is a little problematic; it kind of changes direction as it flips and the cork starts pointing straight ahead again during one part. It's a bit awkward to alter and difficult to keep consistent!
Still, at least it's getting there. Hopefully I can have it finished by today...
Shuttlecock V15
Version 14
I think I've more or less sorted out the bounces at this stage - still looks perhaps a bit too wide to me? I'm not sure. Might mess with bringing it all a little closer together. I think the spin and fall is definitely too slow, though! I compared it to V13 and the shuttlecock spins much, much more quickly.
I guess I'll start messing with the change in direction at this stage before I get into playing with the timings. Don't want to get the timings looking nice and then mess it all up by adding different keyframes...!
I think I've more or less sorted out the bounces at this stage - still looks perhaps a bit too wide to me? I'm not sure. Might mess with bringing it all a little closer together. I think the spin and fall is definitely too slow, though! I compared it to V13 and the shuttlecock spins much, much more quickly.
I guess I'll start messing with the change in direction at this stage before I get into playing with the timings. Don't want to get the timings looking nice and then mess it all up by adding different keyframes...!
Shuttlecock V14
Version 14
Side
Medium closeup
Started with some of the tweaks that Jon suggested; removing the feather bounce and adding in the secondary bounces at the end. It's sort of getting there now I think, though some of the timings are messed up due to removing keyframes and such. I think maybe it rotates a little slowly in the air as it flips? I'll probably look at speeding that up. Not sure about the landing either. It looks like it goes too far before coming down - like Jon said they're very bottom -heavy so I think it needs to land a little closer to where it is at the peak of its bounce. If that makes sense.
Not keen on the secondary bouncing either. I'm really irritated with myself - I got it looking pretty good in V9 and now I'm having trouble replicating it! I think maybe it just needs to bounce a tiny bit higher and rotate upwards a little more as it bounces.
Side
Medium closeup
Started with some of the tweaks that Jon suggested; removing the feather bounce and adding in the secondary bounces at the end. It's sort of getting there now I think, though some of the timings are messed up due to removing keyframes and such. I think maybe it rotates a little slowly in the air as it flips? I'll probably look at speeding that up. Not sure about the landing either. It looks like it goes too far before coming down - like Jon said they're very bottom -heavy so I think it needs to land a little closer to where it is at the peak of its bounce. If that makes sense.
Not keen on the secondary bouncing either. I'm really irritated with myself - I got it looking pretty good in V9 and now I'm having trouble replicating it! I think maybe it just needs to bounce a tiny bit higher and rotate upwards a little more as it bounces.
Shuttlecock V14
Version 14
Medium closeup
Side
Started with some of the tweaks that Jon suggested; removing the feather bounce and adding in the secondary bounces at the end. It's sort of getting there now I think, though some of the timings are messed up due to removing keyframes and such. I think maybe it rotates a little slowly in the air as it flips? I'll probably look at speeding that up. Not sure about the landing either. It looks like it goes too far before coming down - like Jon said they're very bottom -heavy so I think it needs to land a little closer to where it is at the peak of its bounce. If that makes sense.
Not keen on the secondary bouncing either. I'm really irritated with myself - I got it looking pretty good in V9 and now I'm having trouble replicating it! I think maybe it just needs to bounce a tiny bit higher and rotate upwards a little more as it bounces.
Medium closeup
Side
Started with some of the tweaks that Jon suggested; removing the feather bounce and adding in the secondary bounces at the end. It's sort of getting there now I think, though some of the timings are messed up due to removing keyframes and such. I think maybe it rotates a little slowly in the air as it flips? I'll probably look at speeding that up. Not sure about the landing either. It looks like it goes too far before coming down - like Jon said they're very bottom -heavy so I think it needs to land a little closer to where it is at the peak of its bounce. If that makes sense.
Not keen on the secondary bouncing either. I'm really irritated with myself - I got it looking pretty good in V9 and now I'm having trouble replicating it! I think maybe it just needs to bounce a tiny bit higher and rotate upwards a little more as it bounces.
Shuttlecock V13
Version 13
Spoke to Jon yesterday and he gave me some very helpful critique on this so far. He said he wasn't sure about landing on the feathers - shuttlecocks are, after all, bottom-heavy and so wouldn't tend to do that. Although this is what I observed in the reference footage I can defintely see his point - it's tricky to pull off and doesn't look right, really. Instead of landing on the feathers he suggested to have it go through a full rotation and land cork-down, then to have a little secondary bouncing towards the end as it loses momentum.
The other thing he noted was that it's very "straight," which isn't a huge issue, but he did suggest maybe skewing it slightly as it lands and have it bounce off at a slightly different angle to make it a little more interesting. He also clarified that the shuttlecock needs to bounce within the white square, which is easy to fix.
Hopefully the next couple of revisions will be the last ones so I can just move on from the blasted thing...
Spoke to Jon yesterday and he gave me some very helpful critique on this so far. He said he wasn't sure about landing on the feathers - shuttlecocks are, after all, bottom-heavy and so wouldn't tend to do that. Although this is what I observed in the reference footage I can defintely see his point - it's tricky to pull off and doesn't look right, really. Instead of landing on the feathers he suggested to have it go through a full rotation and land cork-down, then to have a little secondary bouncing towards the end as it loses momentum.
The other thing he noted was that it's very "straight," which isn't a huge issue, but he did suggest maybe skewing it slightly as it lands and have it bounce off at a slightly different angle to make it a little more interesting. He also clarified that the shuttlecock needs to bounce within the white square, which is easy to fix.
Hopefully the next couple of revisions will be the last ones so I can just move on from the blasted thing...
Thursday, 29 March 2012
Shuttlecock V10 & V12
Version 10
Biggest changes here are to try and mimic the reference footage more closely in terms of angle, shuttlecock spacing etc. I altered the angle that it initially lands at so that it sticks out slightly. It should probably bounce off in that direction as well, though - at the moment it just sort of goes in a straight line which looks a bit weird.
I also once again shortened the distance the shuttlecock travels after its first bounce and increased the height. I think it looks a lot better this way, but the second "bounce" is bothering me a lot. If it lands on the feathers it shouldn't really bounce very high or very far, if at all - it really needs to land on the feathers, then come straight down onto the cork. However this is very tricky to animate owing to the construction of the rig - the shuttlecock will always rotate from the cork which means that if I try to rotate the feathers upwards the cork will stay at the same height. I could probably simply adjust the height manually - thinking about it, it sounds very logical and very simple. I don't know why I've been having difficulty with it. Maybe I'll give it another shot.
I also removed the series of smaller bounces at the end. The shuttlecock comes to a very sudden stop after the feathers drop back to the ground now, which I don't really like - I think it should probably bounce very slightly once more afterwards. It's a bit too slow as well - once I start adjusting the curves I can remove some of that cushioning/easing.
I also managed to break yet another rig - look closely, once again you see that the translation control has detached itself from the ball of the shuttlecock. I have absolutely no idea why this keeps happening. This time, I almost certainly did not place any keyframes on the wrong object - it seemed to occur after I started Ctrl + Z/undoing a set of keyframes that I didn't like. The control object just seemed to pop away from the rig. Very, very weird. And annoying.
Version 12
Please try to see past the ugly capture...! I've started adjusting the curves at this point, giving the shuttlecock a faster bounce and a slight delay at the top to allow it time to rotate downwards.
Looking at it closely, I think it probably hits the peak a little too suddenly - almost like an invisible ceiling. I think it needs to delay perhaps just a little longer to allow it to rotate a bit more before it drops.
I tried speeding up the fall onto the feathers at the end but it still looks too snappy/choppy. I really don't know what to do about it - my main idea for a fix involves getting the ball to drop straight from the feathers onto the ball and back again, in one place, without traveling forward and backwards or up and down or jerking all over the place.
Biggest changes here are to try and mimic the reference footage more closely in terms of angle, shuttlecock spacing etc. I altered the angle that it initially lands at so that it sticks out slightly. It should probably bounce off in that direction as well, though - at the moment it just sort of goes in a straight line which looks a bit weird.
I also once again shortened the distance the shuttlecock travels after its first bounce and increased the height. I think it looks a lot better this way, but the second "bounce" is bothering me a lot. If it lands on the feathers it shouldn't really bounce very high or very far, if at all - it really needs to land on the feathers, then come straight down onto the cork. However this is very tricky to animate owing to the construction of the rig - the shuttlecock will always rotate from the cork which means that if I try to rotate the feathers upwards the cork will stay at the same height. I could probably simply adjust the height manually - thinking about it, it sounds very logical and very simple. I don't know why I've been having difficulty with it. Maybe I'll give it another shot.
I also removed the series of smaller bounces at the end. The shuttlecock comes to a very sudden stop after the feathers drop back to the ground now, which I don't really like - I think it should probably bounce very slightly once more afterwards. It's a bit too slow as well - once I start adjusting the curves I can remove some of that cushioning/easing.
I also managed to break yet another rig - look closely, once again you see that the translation control has detached itself from the ball of the shuttlecock. I have absolutely no idea why this keeps happening. This time, I almost certainly did not place any keyframes on the wrong object - it seemed to occur after I started Ctrl + Z/undoing a set of keyframes that I didn't like. The control object just seemed to pop away from the rig. Very, very weird. And annoying.
Version 12
Please try to see past the ugly capture...! I've started adjusting the curves at this point, giving the shuttlecock a faster bounce and a slight delay at the top to allow it time to rotate downwards.
Looking at it closely, I think it probably hits the peak a little too suddenly - almost like an invisible ceiling. I think it needs to delay perhaps just a little longer to allow it to rotate a bit more before it drops.
I tried speeding up the fall onto the feathers at the end but it still looks too snappy/choppy. I really don't know what to do about it - my main idea for a fix involves getting the ball to drop straight from the feathers onto the ball and back again, in one place, without traveling forward and backwards or up and down or jerking all over the place.
Shuttlecock V9
Version 9
Reverting more to the motion seen in V7, it's quicker and lands pointing forward rather than back. It also lands within the bouncing box rather than outside it. It also enters the shot from a slightly different angle.
There are no timing adjustments so far; it's pretty much the basic motion. I was actually quite happy with this one when I made it, but the more I analysed it the more I started to worry that it didn't wouldn't meet the brief; does it have to bounce inside the white square, or just land within it? I'm also worrying that it's not enough like the reference I used, it's not how a real shuttlecock would act, etc. etc.
On a more practical basis, however, the main issue is that first bounce. I think it still travels too far, but I did reduce the rotation so that it lands on the other corner which I think is looking better.
I do like the ending; it's not strictly lifelike, but it's a little better than just having it fall flat onto the floor. originally, I wanted to have it fall straight down onto the tip from the feathers but due to the nature of the rig (it rotates strictly from the ball end) it's very difficult to line up correctly. Absolutely none of my attempts to do so worked - should have captured and uploaded them really, but hey ho.
It probably skids too much as well. Shuttlecocks tend to come to a halt straight away when thrown, not bounce and then keep going forward like a ball does.
I don't know, I'll probably go back to the footage and try to mimic it more closely. But it's a start.
Reverting more to the motion seen in V7, it's quicker and lands pointing forward rather than back. It also lands within the bouncing box rather than outside it. It also enters the shot from a slightly different angle.
There are no timing adjustments so far; it's pretty much the basic motion. I was actually quite happy with this one when I made it, but the more I analysed it the more I started to worry that it didn't wouldn't meet the brief; does it have to bounce inside the white square, or just land within it? I'm also worrying that it's not enough like the reference I used, it's not how a real shuttlecock would act, etc. etc.
On a more practical basis, however, the main issue is that first bounce. I think it still travels too far, but I did reduce the rotation so that it lands on the other corner which I think is looking better.
I do like the ending; it's not strictly lifelike, but it's a little better than just having it fall flat onto the floor. originally, I wanted to have it fall straight down onto the tip from the feathers but due to the nature of the rig (it rotates strictly from the ball end) it's very difficult to line up correctly. Absolutely none of my attempts to do so worked - should have captured and uploaded them really, but hey ho.
It probably skids too much as well. Shuttlecocks tend to come to a halt straight away when thrown, not bounce and then keep going forward like a ball does.
I don't know, I'll probably go back to the footage and try to mimic it more closely. But it's a start.
Friday, 23 March 2012
Shuttlecock V7
I have no idea what happened to version 6; either it got overwritten or (more likely) my naming conventions suck and I accidentally skipped a number. Whoops. I'll keep it labelled thus for now until I figure out what happened. Preferably when I'm not so tired.
I was getting very flustered by this point so I scurried off and found yet another reference video. This one, I must admit, is pretty brilliant.
I cut it from what I think was a student film (11 minutes long!), and unfortunately they put some sort of peculiar stagger effect on it, so it kind of jars the image. If you spend long enough scrubbing through it you can sort of get a feel for the overall motion, though.
Immediately it's apparent where I was going wrong last time - you can see that the shuttlecock hits the ground and flips forward before landing on the corner, which then knocks the cork towards the ground, where it knocks the shaft back again and so on. Very, very, VERY similar to the motion in the previous video, so I was able to put two and two together and kind of understand the overall mechanics of the thing. Subsequently:
Version 7
Side
Medium closeup
Now that's better
The new reference video clearly helped, I think. It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but I think it's looking a lot better.
I think it possibly bounces a little too far forward (though I suppose it depends on the force of the launch) and perhaps it could stand to bounce a little higher?
The other thing I notice is that maybe it rotates a little too much. Currently, as it flies through the air, one of the corners brushes the ground but it keeps rotating until the other corner hits the floor, then it starts bouncing - I could have it bounce off the first corner and it might look a little better. If that makes sense.
After it bounces off the corner and lands on the cork, it kind of skids along the ground before rotating back onto the feathers - I think I probably need to have it bounce a little more instead of skid.
But, other than that, I'm feeling a little happier. I'm concerned with how simple it is... it just sort of bounces in a straight line. I feel like I should fancy it up a bit and have it bounce or rotate in a slightly different direction but I don't know. Maybe that's not important. I'll try to worry about that later.
I was getting very flustered by this point so I scurried off and found yet another reference video. This one, I must admit, is pretty brilliant.
I cut it from what I think was a student film (11 minutes long!), and unfortunately they put some sort of peculiar stagger effect on it, so it kind of jars the image. If you spend long enough scrubbing through it you can sort of get a feel for the overall motion, though.
Immediately it's apparent where I was going wrong last time - you can see that the shuttlecock hits the ground and flips forward before landing on the corner, which then knocks the cork towards the ground, where it knocks the shaft back again and so on. Very, very, VERY similar to the motion in the previous video, so I was able to put two and two together and kind of understand the overall mechanics of the thing. Subsequently:
Version 7
Side
Medium closeup
Now that's better
The new reference video clearly helped, I think. It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but I think it's looking a lot better.
I think it possibly bounces a little too far forward (though I suppose it depends on the force of the launch) and perhaps it could stand to bounce a little higher?
The other thing I notice is that maybe it rotates a little too much. Currently, as it flies through the air, one of the corners brushes the ground but it keeps rotating until the other corner hits the floor, then it starts bouncing - I could have it bounce off the first corner and it might look a little better. If that makes sense.
After it bounces off the corner and lands on the cork, it kind of skids along the ground before rotating back onto the feathers - I think I probably need to have it bounce a little more instead of skid.
But, other than that, I'm feeling a little happier. I'm concerned with how simple it is... it just sort of bounces in a straight line. I feel like I should fancy it up a bit and have it bounce or rotate in a slightly different direction but I don't know. Maybe that's not important. I'll try to worry about that later.
Shuttlecock V5
Version 5
Oh dear...
Here I started trying to add the rotation to the shuttlecock... you can tell I wasn't thinking clearly. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Though, to be fair, I'm typing this after watching a much clearer reference video (which I'll post shortly) so I can now understand what was happening in that blurry video - when I originally animated this one all I had to go on was the super tiny video and had to guesstimate most of it!
First big problem; why does it rotate to the side after the first bounce? It should, logically, have rotated forward, landed on the corner of the shaft and then flipped over onto its side. It should then probably have bounced along on its side, or hit the corner again and then bounced over to the right.
It's floaty and has no physics. I opted to just give up on this one; it was doing my head in and I needed more footage. Back to Youtube...
Oh dear...
Here I started trying to add the rotation to the shuttlecock... you can tell I wasn't thinking clearly. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Though, to be fair, I'm typing this after watching a much clearer reference video (which I'll post shortly) so I can now understand what was happening in that blurry video - when I originally animated this one all I had to go on was the super tiny video and had to guesstimate most of it!
First big problem; why does it rotate to the side after the first bounce? It should, logically, have rotated forward, landed on the corner of the shaft and then flipped over onto its side. It should then probably have bounced along on its side, or hit the corner again and then bounced over to the right.
It's floaty and has no physics. I opted to just give up on this one; it was doing my head in and I needed more footage. Back to Youtube...
Shuttlecock V4
I took a step back this time. I'm still feeling very anxious and overwhelmed by this whole thing - seems Softimage really isn't my forte - and I'm just beginning to panic a little about the amount of work I still have to do... logically I know I'm not behind but I'm so desperate to get this part of the brief over and done with so I can just concentrate on the next bit. Unfortunately that clashes with my desire to be absolutely perfect.
Agghh.
So, anyway, I was poking around on Youtube and I managed to find a couple of reference videos that I thought might help give me more of an indication of the shuttlecock's movement as it strikes the ground.
I took this one from Will's blog (sorry Will!!) and trimmed it down so I was able to loop the point of interest. It's a little difficult to see, but you can kind of get a feel for the motion - looks to me as if it lands cork-down, then bounces to the side and lands on the feathers. When the feathers strike the ground, it bounces back forward and is knocked in an arc, landing back on its other side where it bounces very slightly and rolls around a little until it comes to a stop.
Rather similar to the observations I made from the video uploaded onto myUCA. The main difference here is the direction it bounces and lands caused by the trajectory/angle it lands at.
Version 4
I tried to mimic the overall path of the bounce, opting not to tinker with any rotation at this stage. The speed and distance travelled in each bounce are a little off, but I did try to match the overall timing with the video as best as I could. I wasn't sure how I felt about it at the time - I was a little hazy and still getting myself very worked up over it, so I had trouble seeing whether it had potential to work or if I should just have scrapped it entirely and started fresh.
Looking at it now I think that perhaps it bounces forward just a little too far, and not far enough when it bounces from left to right. I think that it could have stood to bounce a little higher, too, bearing in mind that it was going to be rotating forward to land on the tip.
See? This is why I need to calm down and take breaks. Looking at it with fresh eyes I can much more easily see what could have been fixed, rather than rushing straight ahead and making a billion different half-finished versions. Oh well...
Agghh.
So, anyway, I was poking around on Youtube and I managed to find a couple of reference videos that I thought might help give me more of an indication of the shuttlecock's movement as it strikes the ground.
I took this one from Will's blog (sorry Will!!) and trimmed it down so I was able to loop the point of interest. It's a little difficult to see, but you can kind of get a feel for the motion - looks to me as if it lands cork-down, then bounces to the side and lands on the feathers. When the feathers strike the ground, it bounces back forward and is knocked in an arc, landing back on its other side where it bounces very slightly and rolls around a little until it comes to a stop.
Rather similar to the observations I made from the video uploaded onto myUCA. The main difference here is the direction it bounces and lands caused by the trajectory/angle it lands at.
Version 4
I tried to mimic the overall path of the bounce, opting not to tinker with any rotation at this stage. The speed and distance travelled in each bounce are a little off, but I did try to match the overall timing with the video as best as I could. I wasn't sure how I felt about it at the time - I was a little hazy and still getting myself very worked up over it, so I had trouble seeing whether it had potential to work or if I should just have scrapped it entirely and started fresh.
Looking at it now I think that perhaps it bounces forward just a little too far, and not far enough when it bounces from left to right. I think that it could have stood to bounce a little higher, too, bearing in mind that it was going to be rotating forward to land on the tip.
See? This is why I need to calm down and take breaks. Looking at it with fresh eyes I can much more easily see what could have been fixed, rather than rushing straight ahead and making a billion different half-finished versions. Oh well...
Shuttlecock V3
Version 3
I'm really sorry, I know it's stupid and I'm an idiot, but I cannot for the life of me remember what I changed in this version. It looks exactly the same but I did it a couple of days ago and was getting really flustered with getting this right so I just carried on revising them one after another without pausing to type down my observations. I know I must have changed it, or I wouldn't have saved it as a new version... I'll leave it here for the time being anyway...
I'm really sorry, I know it's stupid and I'm an idiot, but I cannot for the life of me remember what I changed in this version. It looks exactly the same but I did it a couple of days ago and was getting really flustered with getting this right so I just carried on revising them one after another without pausing to type down my observations. I know I must have changed it, or I wouldn't have saved it as a new version... I'll leave it here for the time being anyway...
Wednesday, 21 March 2012
Shuttlecock V1 & V2
Shuttlecock V1
Side
Medium closeup
(Sorry for the horrible Youtube upload — hit my daily Vimeo limit and I'm still waiting for it to reset...!)
For an initial test, I don't think it came out too badly - especially considering I was absolutely dreading doing the shuttlecock! It was done on a whim, mostly; there's precious little reference on youtube and the shuttlecocks I bought are useless cheap plastic things that don't bounce at all. So I'm having to make a lot of educated guesses as to the motion of the shuttlecock.
Obviously it's very rough so far! I tried to pay attention to the tilt of the feathers and ball, considering how the feathers hitting the floor would effect the rotation. It definitely needs more rotation - a shuttlecock is very bottom-heavy and it will always tilt so the ball points downwards. I'd like to have it swing downwards towards the end, just before it lands - perhaps having the feathers hit the floor and knocking the ball downwards to get it going.
I guess the first thing I'm noticing is that it doesn't really bounce very high, or enough times. It's quite a springy thing and if it weren't for the feathers scraping the ground and getting in the way it would probably bounce a fair bit. I'd like to animate more of that sort of thing - the ball trying to bounce but interrupted by the feathers.
Without decent reference it's hard to say whether it looks correct or not, so I think it's going to be very much a case of eyeballing it...!
Shuttlecock V2
Here, I've removed most of the rotation so I can focus on getting the bounces right. Maybe it's because there's less going on, but I don't like this version as much as the last one...! Maybe once I've started jazzing it up a bit it'll look a little nicer...
I'm less happy with the speed here, too. I actually delayed the shuttlecock's initial rotation after it strikes the ground the first time - I wanted to give the impression that it drags along the floor before rotating forward but, thinking about it, it probably doesn't make much sense. I think it would probably bounce first - unless it landed with the feathers quite close to the ground there's no reason for it to drag.
I'm not sure if the bounce is really high enough - the closer to the middle it bounces, the higher it goes. Unless I have it strike the ground at a slight angle it should probably go higher, but wouldn't travel as far. If it hits at an angle it won't go as high but it would probably travel much further. In the context of this animation I think it would be best for it to travel further.
I'll have to scurry off and do a few more thumbnails. I've been working a lot from my earlier sketches and improvising as I go along, which in all honesty I think might work better for this particular animation, as a lot of it is just eyeballing to see what looks right. Still, it won't hurt to have a solid foundation of what I want to do...
Side
Medium closeup
(Sorry for the horrible Youtube upload — hit my daily Vimeo limit and I'm still waiting for it to reset...!)
For an initial test, I don't think it came out too badly - especially considering I was absolutely dreading doing the shuttlecock! It was done on a whim, mostly; there's precious little reference on youtube and the shuttlecocks I bought are useless cheap plastic things that don't bounce at all. So I'm having to make a lot of educated guesses as to the motion of the shuttlecock.
Obviously it's very rough so far! I tried to pay attention to the tilt of the feathers and ball, considering how the feathers hitting the floor would effect the rotation. It definitely needs more rotation - a shuttlecock is very bottom-heavy and it will always tilt so the ball points downwards. I'd like to have it swing downwards towards the end, just before it lands - perhaps having the feathers hit the floor and knocking the ball downwards to get it going.
I guess the first thing I'm noticing is that it doesn't really bounce very high, or enough times. It's quite a springy thing and if it weren't for the feathers scraping the ground and getting in the way it would probably bounce a fair bit. I'd like to animate more of that sort of thing - the ball trying to bounce but interrupted by the feathers.
Without decent reference it's hard to say whether it looks correct or not, so I think it's going to be very much a case of eyeballing it...!
Shuttlecock V2
Here, I've removed most of the rotation so I can focus on getting the bounces right. Maybe it's because there's less going on, but I don't like this version as much as the last one...! Maybe once I've started jazzing it up a bit it'll look a little nicer...
I'm less happy with the speed here, too. I actually delayed the shuttlecock's initial rotation after it strikes the ground the first time - I wanted to give the impression that it drags along the floor before rotating forward but, thinking about it, it probably doesn't make much sense. I think it would probably bounce first - unless it landed with the feathers quite close to the ground there's no reason for it to drag.
I'm not sure if the bounce is really high enough - the closer to the middle it bounces, the higher it goes. Unless I have it strike the ground at a slight angle it should probably go higher, but wouldn't travel as far. If it hits at an angle it won't go as high but it would probably travel much further. In the context of this animation I think it would be best for it to travel further.
I'll have to scurry off and do a few more thumbnails. I've been working a lot from my earlier sketches and improvising as I go along, which in all honesty I think might work better for this particular animation, as a lot of it is just eyeballing to see what looks right. Still, it won't hurt to have a solid foundation of what I want to do...
Friday, 16 March 2012
Shuttlecock drop test V1
Poking around on myUCA, I found the reference videos that were very kindly posted up. My own set of shuttlecocks have actually arrived now, so I'll be able to shoot my own footage to use, but I thought it might be helpful to practice animating a basic drop of a shuttlecock before I get into throwing them around.
Analysing the video, I was able to break it down somewhat and figure out the main timings:
It's actually quite a tricky one to plot in thumbnails. I got a bit confused somewhere along the way - started out alright with the first graph by just showing a few of the poses and a few scribbled notes, but the second graph started to get a bit confusing where I started trying to get in more of the exact motion. I started by sketching it all in one place then halfway through started spacing it out (mostly cause I didn't have enough room on the left. Didn't occur to just sketch it going in the opposite direction) - it's fine for purposes of checking the poses but it doesn't make much sense in terms of what the shuttlecock is supposed to be doing. I should have refined it further and made a clearer, more final chart that makes sense to look at before trying to animate. Perhaps that's where I went wrong.
But anyway, looking at the video reference, the shuttlecock drops very quickly to start (weighed down by the tip), taking about 9 - 10 frames to fall. It hits the ground, tip-first and bounces back up again, slowly sagging to the side as it does. It doesn't bounce very high, and it pauses for a couple of frames but continues rotating slightly before it starts to fall. It lands on its side and the tip strikes the table/ground which causes it to bounce back up. The feathers of the shuttlecock hit the table as well which knocks the tip back forward - so you get a sort of wave effect as it rises and falls.
Bearing all this in mind, here's a first attempt:
Analysing the video, I was able to break it down somewhat and figure out the main timings:
It's actually quite a tricky one to plot in thumbnails. I got a bit confused somewhere along the way - started out alright with the first graph by just showing a few of the poses and a few scribbled notes, but the second graph started to get a bit confusing where I started trying to get in more of the exact motion. I started by sketching it all in one place then halfway through started spacing it out (mostly cause I didn't have enough room on the left. Didn't occur to just sketch it going in the opposite direction) - it's fine for purposes of checking the poses but it doesn't make much sense in terms of what the shuttlecock is supposed to be doing. I should have refined it further and made a clearer, more final chart that makes sense to look at before trying to animate. Perhaps that's where I went wrong.
But anyway, looking at the video reference, the shuttlecock drops very quickly to start (weighed down by the tip), taking about 9 - 10 frames to fall. It hits the ground, tip-first and bounces back up again, slowly sagging to the side as it does. It doesn't bounce very high, and it pauses for a couple of frames but continues rotating slightly before it starts to fall. It lands on its side and the tip strikes the table/ground which causes it to bounce back up. The feathers of the shuttlecock hit the table as well which knocks the tip back forward - so you get a sort of wave effect as it rises and falls.
Bearing all this in mind, here's a first attempt:
This is mostly just a first draft, nowhere near complete yet - as always, little more than keyframes with no fcurve or timing alteration. That will all come once I've got the basis of the motion sorted out.
Just to review what I've got so far, the drop itself as the shuttlecock enters the screen is far too slow. It's only 10 frames, as per the diagram, but I don't think I really dropped it from high enough. If I increase its starting height then it should speed it up quite nicely.
It doesn't really bounce high enough after striking the ground, making it seem quite heavy. All I'll need to do is just increase the height of its peak and it should be a bit better.
The last problem is the bounce at the very end as it comes to a stop. I don't know if it's the timing, or some mistake in the keyframes, or even if it just looks weird because it's bouncing on the spot - but it seems to be a bit of a kink as it bounces off the table. I really can't put my finger on it - it's weird, when I step through it frame by frame, it actually looks fine, so I wonder if it's just in the spacing or timing?
After tweaking that, I plan to spread things out so that the shuttlecock bounces across the floor rather than up and down in a straight line - see if that helps things any - and then start looking at altering the curves and timing to give the shuttlecock a sense of weight. In accordance with the video I'd like to delay the shuttlecock at the peaks of each bounce for just a couple of frames and keep it rotating as it hangs in the air.
The process of animating the shuttlecock so far was pretty simple. Using the reference video posted on myUCA, I simply went through frame-by-frame, identifying key poses for the shuttlecock and simply replicating them within Softimage using the rig controls.
The shuttlecock rig is quite nice because it only has two controls - rotation and position - but I do find it very difficult only being able to view keyframes for one set of parameters at a time. This makes offsetting and re-timing things quite tricky as I need to keep flipping back and forth between each rig control to check the location of other keyframes.
I think the biggest mistakes I made in terms of workflow were not planning properly and also animating the shuttlecock bouncing in place rather than mimicking the motion in the video and having it go across the table. You'd think I'd have learned from the bouncing ball exercise that that's a bad idea!...
Nonetheless, I'll give it another shot!
I think the biggest mistakes I made in terms of workflow were not planning properly and also animating the shuttlecock bouncing in place rather than mimicking the motion in the video and having it go across the table. You'd think I'd have learned from the bouncing ball exercise that that's a bad idea!...
Nonetheless, I'll give it another shot!
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