Version 25
Side
Perspective
A slight attempt at some head movement and some wrist overlap! I actually did it as a bit of a joke, was mostly just fooling around. To my great surprise I actually really liked the way it looked! I think it's a bit too over-exaggerated though, so I'll definitely tone it down a little. I think it looks a little at odds with the rest of the arms - they're not quite so loose. I think I need to offset the forearms slightly, then it might look a touch better.
Not sure about the head movement at the moment. I didn't really know what it should be doing, so I just kind of made an educated guess and I have no idea whether it looks correct or not.
The more I look at the legs, the more they bother me. Again I think it's mostly going to be a case of timing adjustment and offsetting bits and pieces to get some nice drag going on the limbs. I think it's coming together... slowly...
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Wednesday, 4 April 2012
Moom walk cycle [upper block] V17 & V22
I was really scratching my head over my previously posted capture - no matter what I did I simply could not nail it and the arm just looked utterly wrong. I am ashamed to admit how long it took me to spot the mistake, and rest assured my face glowed like the setting sun once I'd clocked it.
I had the arm swinging with the wrong leg. I got it backwards. Amateur mistake.
As soon as I'd finished bashing my head against the wall for not spotting it sooner, I flipped it to the other side and it instantly looked a billion times better:
Version 17
More to the point, it was much easier to "read" for mistakes. It's still very much a work in progress, but simply fixing that arm has made one hell of a difference.
What followed was a series of tedious and very samey captures that I can't really talk much about aside from saying "the arm is too far forward," or "his shoulder pops here." I don't know, maybe that's valuable, but I talk too much as it is. I find it much easier to reflect/critique this stuff when there're more changes, so I'm just going to jump ahead a few versions.
Version 22
Lots of minor tweaks to the position of the arm here. The biggest change in this version is the shoulder - I wiped all previous keyframes and approached it in a much more straightforward manner. Before, I keyframed almost every aspect of it by hand which led to a slew of inconsistencies in speed and spacing that I believe may have contributed to some of the random limb popping and slight jerkiness in the previous versions. All I did this time is slap a couple of keyframes at the furthest points of its swing, then added a one to the first contact pose to have it move in a slightly smaller increment before it swung forward, giving it a little delay. I think it looks much, much better now, and the arc of the arm is clearly visible.
I think it's safe to say that the blocking of the arm is done at this stage. It's still not perfect, of course, but I think I'm ready to add in the opposing arm swing and also start looking at fine-tuning the timings and getting some wrist movement in there. The head is too static, too, so I'd like to get a bit of follow through going on that. I may also return to the legs a bit later as well and see if I can do anything to improve those.
I had the arm swinging with the wrong leg. I got it backwards. Amateur mistake.
As soon as I'd finished bashing my head against the wall for not spotting it sooner, I flipped it to the other side and it instantly looked a billion times better:
Version 17
More to the point, it was much easier to "read" for mistakes. It's still very much a work in progress, but simply fixing that arm has made one hell of a difference.
What followed was a series of tedious and very samey captures that I can't really talk much about aside from saying "the arm is too far forward," or "his shoulder pops here." I don't know, maybe that's valuable, but I talk too much as it is. I find it much easier to reflect/critique this stuff when there're more changes, so I'm just going to jump ahead a few versions.
Version 22
Lots of minor tweaks to the position of the arm here. The biggest change in this version is the shoulder - I wiped all previous keyframes and approached it in a much more straightforward manner. Before, I keyframed almost every aspect of it by hand which led to a slew of inconsistencies in speed and spacing that I believe may have contributed to some of the random limb popping and slight jerkiness in the previous versions. All I did this time is slap a couple of keyframes at the furthest points of its swing, then added a one to the first contact pose to have it move in a slightly smaller increment before it swung forward, giving it a little delay. I think it looks much, much better now, and the arc of the arm is clearly visible.
I think it's safe to say that the blocking of the arm is done at this stage. It's still not perfect, of course, but I think I'm ready to add in the opposing arm swing and also start looking at fine-tuning the timings and getting some wrist movement in there. The head is too static, too, so I'd like to get a bit of follow through going on that. I may also return to the legs a bit later as well and see if I can do anything to improve those.
Saturday, 31 March 2012
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.
Wednesday, 28 March 2012
Moom walk [lower block] V5
Version 5
Side
Perspective
Aggh. I actually prefer the previous version over this one. I tried getting a bit too involved with it, I think - tried changing too much at once without checking each stage. Lesson learned.
I altered the height of the down, passing and up positions to try and smooth out the bounce and I think it looks better, but the legs, I feel, are much worse. I tried to sort out the leg's popping by altering the passing and up legs - it sort of worked, I think, but now the leg very suddenly comes to a stop on the contact pose when it should probably keep moving backwards. In retrospect I think I may be able to fix that by dropping the height of the contact pose slightly and moving his leg back a bit more but I'm concerned that will mess up the rest of the poses in some way.
I did also end up extending the front leg a little more on each contact pose and I'm not keen on the way it looks. I think the stride is a bit wide now. Sort of looks like he's marching!
I did try to do something a little funkier with the feet on the 'up' position as well by rotating the toes so they were flat on the floor and the heel was up, giving a bit more of a push, but due to the automated keyframes it sort of bumps up and down rather than sliding and moving smoothly. I'd probably have to alter each frame by hand to fix that, so I think I'll revert it and just leave it as it was. There'll be time to refine these things later. It's more important to get a solid block done at this point.
I'm actually wondering if it is at all possible to fix the leg popping using so few keyframes. It seems, again, like something you'd need to manually tweak or with the fcurves. I'll give it another shot but I might need to ask Jon for some advice on that one; I don't seem to be able to fix it no matter what I do!
I'll probably go back to version 4, which I feel was overall a little better, and make some slight height adjustments to that one to see if I can smooth out the bouncing. Then I'll look at tweaking the legs a little more.
Side
Perspective
Aggh. I actually prefer the previous version over this one. I tried getting a bit too involved with it, I think - tried changing too much at once without checking each stage. Lesson learned.
I altered the height of the down, passing and up positions to try and smooth out the bounce and I think it looks better, but the legs, I feel, are much worse. I tried to sort out the leg's popping by altering the passing and up legs - it sort of worked, I think, but now the leg very suddenly comes to a stop on the contact pose when it should probably keep moving backwards. In retrospect I think I may be able to fix that by dropping the height of the contact pose slightly and moving his leg back a bit more but I'm concerned that will mess up the rest of the poses in some way.
I did also end up extending the front leg a little more on each contact pose and I'm not keen on the way it looks. I think the stride is a bit wide now. Sort of looks like he's marching!
I did try to do something a little funkier with the feet on the 'up' position as well by rotating the toes so they were flat on the floor and the heel was up, giving a bit more of a push, but due to the automated keyframes it sort of bumps up and down rather than sliding and moving smoothly. I'd probably have to alter each frame by hand to fix that, so I think I'll revert it and just leave it as it was. There'll be time to refine these things later. It's more important to get a solid block done at this point.
I'm actually wondering if it is at all possible to fix the leg popping using so few keyframes. It seems, again, like something you'd need to manually tweak or with the fcurves. I'll give it another shot but I might need to ask Jon for some advice on that one; I don't seem to be able to fix it no matter what I do!
I'll probably go back to version 4, which I feel was overall a little better, and make some slight height adjustments to that one to see if I can smooth out the bouncing. Then I'll look at tweaking the legs a little more.
Moom walk cycle [lower block] V4
Version 4
Side
Perspective
Here I've mostly just tried to sort out the stampy feet a little more by bringing the knee forward on the passing position so there's more change between keys. I think it's looking better, although there's a bit of popping with the back leg and I think the up and down movement might be a little bit bumpy? He does seem to rise up quite high on the 'up' pose so maybe dropping the height slightly would rectify that, although that would make the knee bend, which would mean I need to bring the leg further back to straighten it, which may then cause problems with the contact pose - the contact pose's back leg is already stretched almost as far as it will go without popping out of place so I'm not sure what else I can do.
The popping, I think, may be caused by the spacing of the leg between the passing and contact poses. I could try bringing the leg of the passing and up positions forward so that there's more change between them.
Really, though, I think that the problem is the contact pose? Maybe he's up too high. If I lower him slightly I might be able to extend the back leg a little more. I'm wary of lengthening the stride too much... don't want it too exagerrated.
Side
Perspective
Here I've mostly just tried to sort out the stampy feet a little more by bringing the knee forward on the passing position so there's more change between keys. I think it's looking better, although there's a bit of popping with the back leg and I think the up and down movement might be a little bit bumpy? He does seem to rise up quite high on the 'up' pose so maybe dropping the height slightly would rectify that, although that would make the knee bend, which would mean I need to bring the leg further back to straighten it, which may then cause problems with the contact pose - the contact pose's back leg is already stretched almost as far as it will go without popping out of place so I'm not sure what else I can do.
The popping, I think, may be caused by the spacing of the leg between the passing and contact poses. I could try bringing the leg of the passing and up positions forward so that there's more change between them.
Really, though, I think that the problem is the contact pose? Maybe he's up too high. If I lower him slightly I might be able to extend the back leg a little more. I'm wary of lengthening the stride too much... don't want it too exagerrated.
Friday, 23 March 2012
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...
Bowling ball V9
Medium closeup
Closeup
I think this is the version I'm most satisfied with thus far. I lengthened the roll of the ball and tweaked the curves so that the speed was relatively consistent when coming out of the last bounce, and had it slow to a stop. The rotation was a little tricky to get right, and I'm still not sure it looks correct. I opted to have it roll for about one frame after it came to a stop, just very slightly, in the hopes that it would be a little more realistic. In reality the ball wouldn't stop moving at the exact point it stopped rotating... I think?
However, looking at the closeup shot, you can see a huge problem - it goes off-screen! It shouldn't be too difficult to fix (hopefully) - I should be able to use the fcurve editor. If I select all the x position keyframes and just drag them up/down to slightly alter the position, I should be able to re-frame it and bring it back into the centre.
Closeup
I think this is the version I'm most satisfied with thus far. I lengthened the roll of the ball and tweaked the curves so that the speed was relatively consistent when coming out of the last bounce, and had it slow to a stop. The rotation was a little tricky to get right, and I'm still not sure it looks correct. I opted to have it roll for about one frame after it came to a stop, just very slightly, in the hopes that it would be a little more realistic. In reality the ball wouldn't stop moving at the exact point it stopped rotating... I think?
However, looking at the closeup shot, you can see a huge problem - it goes off-screen! It shouldn't be too difficult to fix (hopefully) - I should be able to use the fcurve editor. If I select all the x position keyframes and just drag them up/down to slightly alter the position, I should be able to re-frame it and bring it back into the centre.
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...
Bowling ball V8
Version 8
I've done my absolute best with this. I've tweaked the arc, the timing — made it longer, shorter, higher, further, lower, shorter, every conceivable combination, and this is the one that looked the best. I don't think it's too horrendous — far from perfect, far from logical, but it's at a point that I'm relatively satisfied. Mostly.
The only remaining issues, for me, are with the rolling at the end. I think it could stand to roll a little further, and slow to a more gradual stop. It's a bit abrupt at the moment I think. So any further amendments will, for the time being, just be some final tweaks to the rotation and movement.
I've done my absolute best with this. I've tweaked the arc, the timing — made it longer, shorter, higher, further, lower, shorter, every conceivable combination, and this is the one that looked the best. I don't think it's too horrendous — far from perfect, far from logical, but it's at a point that I'm relatively satisfied. Mostly.
The only remaining issues, for me, are with the rolling at the end. I think it could stand to roll a little further, and slow to a more gradual stop. It's a bit abrupt at the moment I think. So any further amendments will, for the time being, just be some final tweaks to the rotation and movement.
Bowling ball V7
Several slight variations on this one; trying to see which timing works better!
Version 7.1
First, general changes. As stated previously I've slightly altered the arc of the bounce. I think it's looking a lot better now! I also kept the ball stuck to the ground for just one frame before it bounces back up again. I had to alter the last (tiny) bounce in order to stop it looking too jerky - I had to increase the height of the ball very slightly and allow it enough time to come back down so that it wouldn't look like a weird juddery glitch, whilst still being quick enough to give the impression that it's barely more than a vibration. I don't know if I succeeded...!
The first thing I noticed was that the bounce itself was still slightly bothering me. With the new arc, it seemed even less weighty than before. It seemed to move too smoothly through the arc - it was a little too uniform. So I tried to increase the spacing between the impact with the ground and the first frame of the bounce, hoping that if it was a little faster it would appear to have struck the floor with more force.
Version 7.2
With the new timing, I think the ball certainly "feels" heavier as it bounces off the floor, but the drop from the bounce seems too slow. I think maybe I got it backwards and should use the timing for the climb for the drop, and revert the climb back to its original speed? I decided to try doing the same thing for the drop's timing as well.
Version 7.3
As I suspected, though, it made the whole thing too choppy. The ball is hardly in the air at all and it really needs to "hover" there for just a second as it fights against gravity.
I think I'll try reversing what I did for 7.2 - having the ascension of the bounce at the slower speed and the decline faster and see how it looks...
Version 7.1
First, general changes. As stated previously I've slightly altered the arc of the bounce. I think it's looking a lot better now! I also kept the ball stuck to the ground for just one frame before it bounces back up again. I had to alter the last (tiny) bounce in order to stop it looking too jerky - I had to increase the height of the ball very slightly and allow it enough time to come back down so that it wouldn't look like a weird juddery glitch, whilst still being quick enough to give the impression that it's barely more than a vibration. I don't know if I succeeded...!
The first thing I noticed was that the bounce itself was still slightly bothering me. With the new arc, it seemed even less weighty than before. It seemed to move too smoothly through the arc - it was a little too uniform. So I tried to increase the spacing between the impact with the ground and the first frame of the bounce, hoping that if it was a little faster it would appear to have struck the floor with more force.
Version 7.2
With the new timing, I think the ball certainly "feels" heavier as it bounces off the floor, but the drop from the bounce seems too slow. I think maybe I got it backwards and should use the timing for the climb for the drop, and revert the climb back to its original speed? I decided to try doing the same thing for the drop's timing as well.
Version 7.3
As I suspected, though, it made the whole thing too choppy. The ball is hardly in the air at all and it really needs to "hover" there for just a second as it fights against gravity.
I think I'll try reversing what I did for 7.2 - having the ascension of the bounce at the slower speed and the decline faster and see how it looks...
Bowling ball V6
Version 6
Side
Medium closeup
I slightly altered the bounce so that there was a little more delay between the peak and the drop. I think having a slightly "choppier" drop works well for stationary balls, but when you start to introduce motion and arcs it looks a bit weird - you can't have the ball suddenly clip to the floor whilst maintaining the slow and steady forward motion.
I think it's looking alright, but I'm not too happy with it. I don't think it really moves enough in an arc, especially on the first bounce - it seems to hit an invisible wall then suddenly drop down. That's possibly why it looks so odd on the medium closeup view? I need to smooth that out and perhaps increase its forward movement just a tad.
It's only noticeable on the side view, but the ball's initial drop is once again bothering me. I think it starts too quickly - I need to ease it out of that forward shove before it drops.
Going back to one of my reference videos, I also noticed something about the second bounce:
You can't really notice it without going frame by frame, but the ball actually remains on the ground for an extra frame before it bounces back up into its last, tiny jump. I'll need to look at incorporating this into my own animation I think, see how it looks.
Side
Medium closeup
I slightly altered the bounce so that there was a little more delay between the peak and the drop. I think having a slightly "choppier" drop works well for stationary balls, but when you start to introduce motion and arcs it looks a bit weird - you can't have the ball suddenly clip to the floor whilst maintaining the slow and steady forward motion.
I think it's looking alright, but I'm not too happy with it. I don't think it really moves enough in an arc, especially on the first bounce - it seems to hit an invisible wall then suddenly drop down. That's possibly why it looks so odd on the medium closeup view? I need to smooth that out and perhaps increase its forward movement just a tad.
It's only noticeable on the side view, but the ball's initial drop is once again bothering me. I think it starts too quickly - I need to ease it out of that forward shove before it drops.
Going back to one of my reference videos, I also noticed something about the second bounce:
You can't really notice it without going frame by frame, but the ball actually remains on the ground for an extra frame before it bounces back up into its last, tiny jump. I'll need to look at incorporating this into my own animation I think, see how it looks.
Sunday, 18 March 2012
Bowling ball drop V3 & V4
Hooray for Vimeo processing!
Version 3
Here, I've adjusted the timing very slightly so that the ball doesn't take so long to ease into the drop. As a result, the ball enters the frame much earlier. I think this speed's better, but I'm not sure about the bounces. They seem too... "floaty" to me. I can't put my finger on what it is, exactly. I think that the ball drops from the peak of its first bounce a bit too slowly and doesn't seem to have much impact with the ground. It's a heavy object - the drop should probably be quite snappy or choppy to really give it the feeling of weight.
Version 4
Version 4
I wondered if spacing the ball out would help me to figure out why the bounces look a bit weird. I think they look a little better now; still slightly floaty? I'm not sure if trying to add the roll at this stage was a bad idea - it's easy to get distracted by too much going on. In this case though I think it might help - makes anything that looks off stick out a lot more.
Anyway. I don't think the ball really rolls or moves far enough. If it's going to roll, I think it probably needs to roll properly - if it was dropped straight down it probably wouldn't roll at all, like in the reference video - so it's probably only going to look right if I animate it rolling as if it's been dropped with a bit of a push. If that makes sense.
I think I could make this version work if I were to add just a little more rotation to the ball, but I might experiment with making the bounces and rolling a little more prominent, as if the ball has been dropped with some forward force.
Bowling ball drop V1, V2
I hate Vimeo! It's hard to review these things properly when it takes so long to process... so here's a bulk post containing the first three revisions of the bowling ball drop!
Version 1
First one using the timing and spacing on the graph almost to a T (save for some minus spacing differences). Approximately 13 frames to drop, then 4 frames to bounce and fall again. It looks alright, but it's far too slow. That can be rectified very easily with some simple keyframe adjustments.
Version 2
Version 1
First one using the timing and spacing on the graph almost to a T (save for some minus spacing differences). Approximately 13 frames to drop, then 4 frames to bounce and fall again. It looks alright, but it's far too slow. That can be rectified very easily with some simple keyframe adjustments.
Version 2
In the second version, I attempted to alter the speed of the initial drop. The bounce speed remains relatively unchanged. Now that I look at it from this angle it's not as bad as I thought, but the main reason I wasn't happy with this one was the drop speed. The ball was far too slow coming out of its highest point - it hung in the air for a very long time before hitting its max speed. Of course, in the render output, you won't see the ball begin to fall at all - you'll only see it enter the frame at high speed. So that might actually be more effective - I may come back to this version's timing, but I tried a third amendment just to see whether it would be any better. Vimeo is processing it currently, so... see you in half an hour.
My current concern with this is how simple it is. I know it's not the point to make it overly complex, but I can't help but feel it might look a bit "lazy" if it's just a straight up-and-down movement. I'm seriously considering trying to get the ball to roll across the ground. I think I'll attempt it anyway, just to see how it looks, but there's no reason I have to use it in the final render if I can't get it right (but that would be giving up...)
Bowling ball drop footage
Getting hold of and dropping a bowling ball myself isn't really too practical, so I've been poking around online. Fortunately it's a fairly basic exercise in animation so there's plenty of pretty clear reference footage to use!
It's quite interesting to note how the ball rolls after being dropped in one video, but not in the other. I'm guessing it's because in the first video the ball is given more of a push forward as it's being dropped, whereas in the second it's simply released with his fingers and so drops straight down.
It's a bit difficult to determine the height from which it's dropped, but I wouldn't think it's much more than a metre. The ball hits the floor quite quickly but doesn't seem to accelerate as fast as the tennis ball - it actually seems to have quite a steady rate of motion. It hits the ground after about 10 frames - the same as the tennis ball - and bounces just once or twice (the second bounce is tiny, the ball barely leaves the floor) before rolling away.
I'll probably do a couple of different versions - one without the roll, and one with the roll, to see what looks best.
Tennis ball bounce V13
All work and no play makes Alex a dull tennis ball
All balls and no tennis makes Alex a tennis ball
Ball tennis and no balls make tennis a ball
balllllsss
Medium close up
Oh goodness. I've fixed up the ball's rotation slightly, so now it begins to rotate after the first bounce. I think it's looking alright? I'm not sure. I still don't know if I'm terribly happy with it, and the more I look at it the worse it looks.
I think, in all honesty, I'm going to have to put a lid on this one for the time being - at least until I can get some outside feedback. It's still not brilliant, but there's only so much I can do with it using my own tired eyes. I'm feeling quite aware of the looming bowling ball and shuttlecock tasks, and if it's taken me this long to get a tennis ball going, I think I'm going to need to start getting on with those as soon as possible.
I'll more than likely end up coming back to it after I can get some feedback from others, but for now I think I can safely tuck it away.
Saturday, 17 March 2012
Tennis ball bounce V11 & V12
Going to have to make this the last one for tonight. I should do a bit more and try to finish it off but I'm incredibly tired, and as previously evidenced, I make stupid mistakes when I'm tired.
I actually think the rotation on this one looks alright! It needs to roll just a teensy bit more towards the end, I think, but it's not too bad (as long as you don't think too hard about realistic physics). The problem comes when I try to apply squash and stretch...
It's the same rotation, just with additional squash and stretch on most of the bounces. I don't know why - maybe it's just me - but it looks really odd to me now. The way that it doesn't spin at all on the first bounce somehow seems very out of place when I add in the squash. Like the force of the contact with the ground should start it rotating? I don't even know! I've been staring at this too long. I've started to go blind.
I also noticed one horrible problem, I've managed to break the rig somehow - probably during my cock-up with the rotation keyframes. If you look closely:
The position control object has magically floated away from the ball and now sits somewhere in front of it. I have absolutely no idea what's happened - I don't recall the point it happened. In fact, I only just noticed when I went to adjust the position to maintain the ball's contact with the ground after applying the squash. It doesn't seem to have broken the animation at all but I'm starting to worry that moving it back into the proper place (when/if I can figure out how to do that) will mess things up. And that will be a whole day wasted. Note to self to ask Jon how to correct it.
Doh... I'm stupid.
Anyhow. I'm going to try one more time to correct the rotation tomorrow and polish things off a bit, then I'm going to need to move on for a while. I can only stare at this silly green ball for so long...!
Tennis ball bounce V10
Using the video I shot as a guide, I thought I might try and be really clever and use a quick diagram I drew as a Rotoscope image within Softimage.
I think it's actually looking a lot better. The biggest issue that I can see now is the rotation - it looks completely wrong, and nothing I'm doing seems to be fixing it. I've tried speeding it up, slowing it down, changing the points it starts rotating - nothing. It just looks weird. I think that the spin just seems to change speed quite randomly - for example, towards the end it doesn't spin much at all but then suddenly rotates quite a lot. I don't know. I'm really tired and I've been staring at this far too long. I'm starting to go blind.
I also noticed that I made a huge cock up and set the rotation keyframes on the translation control - I have absolutely NO idea how I managed that as I was 110% certain that I was selecting the rotation control each and every time. There was one point where, thinking I was being clever, I had two dope sheets open - one locked to display the translation keyframes, so that I would be able to see both sets simultaneously. It's probable that as I was keyframing the rotation control it was getting added to the translation dope sheet as well.
I'm erasing all the rotation keyframes from the translation control now; I just hope I've not somehow completely broken the rig...
I also noticed that I made a huge cock up and set the rotation keyframes on the translation control - I have absolutely NO idea how I managed that as I was 110% certain that I was selecting the rotation control each and every time. There was one point where, thinking I was being clever, I had two dope sheets open - one locked to display the translation keyframes, so that I would be able to see both sets simultaneously. It's probable that as I was keyframing the rotation control it was getting added to the translation dope sheet as well.
I'm erasing all the rotation keyframes from the translation control now; I just hope I've not somehow completely broken the rig...
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