Part 1 — 12 Principles of Animation
I feel that I began to study 3D computer animation in a systematic way this week,, since I had a deep understanding of an important and indispensable knowledge point, 12 principles of animation, and tried to apply them to my animations.
- Squash and stretch
- Anticipation
- Staging
- Straight ahead action and pose to pose
- Follow through and overlapping action
- Slow in and slow out
- Arc
- Secondary action
- Timing
- Exaggeration
- Solid drawing
- Appeal
In fact, what impressed me most was squash and stretch, anticipation, staging and timing, but other knowledge points have been a little unclear, so I reread a video for several times which I have collected before to review. It is important to produce an animation with these principles, which can make characters adhered to the basic laws of physics, enabling animator to deal with abstract issues more flexibly, such as emotional timing and character appeal.
Part 2 — Ball Bounce
This animation I made a series of 5 small segments, which is a process of continuous progress and increasing animation interest and skills.
Animation 1
After class, I tried to make an animation. In this process, I learned that the movement of the ball is a process of decreasing in both the horizontal and vertical directions, which is due to the effect of gravity, showing a parabolic curve track.
First of all, the whole process of the ball landing will have several jumps, because the elasticity of the ball will form a rebound, and the rebound height is not more than the previous bounce height, and finally ends with the decrease of gravity factor and energy. According to the law of height decrease each time, I put key frames in the places of frame 1, 12, 24, 34, 44, 52, 60, 66, 72, 76, 80, 82, 84 ,85 , 86, whose process is to decrease the number of frames by 2 units on the x-axis. The highest height of the first frame is 10, then the landing is 0, and the y-axis height of the next frame is not higher than the height of the previous bounce, and so on. When a corresponding key frame is separated by a key frame, pull the corresponding Y-axis value to 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, 1, 0.5, and the landing is always 0. Then play it, and the playback speed choose real-time so the speed will not be too fast.
After completing the general keyframe, it will be found that the ball seems to have no weight (the curve at this time is shown in Figure 1), that is, the animation principle of slow in and out is lacking. In fact, due to the influence of gravity, the falling process of the ball is an acceleration process, while the process of bounce is a deceleration process. So I used the graph editor to adjust the curve (Figure 2), and break the tangent point to adjust the two curve handles to make it appear more smooth arch radian.
Several commands to help display the trace of the ball. Displays the trace path and motion blur for the current frame and the next 6 frames.
Animation 2
In animation 1, I moved the x-axis and y-axis. On this basis, I added rotation and sliding to animation 2 to make it look more reasonable. As for rotation, it is necessary to avoid the mismatch between rotation and displacement, otherwise it will make the ball appear to rotate more and advance less, or move forward a lot without turning, that is, sliding step. This requires me to pull and play frame by frame carefully to adjust it to the most comfortable state.
In addition, I also added two small details. One is that I make the ball slide a certain distance after bouncing. A elastic bouncing ball is not so heavy in weight, and it will slide for a distance and stop again because of inertia. The other detail is that it will turn to a small angle in the opposite direction before it stops completely due to inertia.
In order to make the ball look more bouncing, I tried to adjust the y-axis value to two-thirds of the previous height. The number of frames between phases in the x-axis was reduced and the speed was changed faster.
I also used some calculation to make it more realistic. In other words, the sliding distance S = L = 2 * 3.14 * r * n, that is, the sliding length is equal to N times the circumference of the small ball, n is the number of turns of the ball, and then n * 360 is used to get the rotation angle.In addition, the process of sliding and stopping is a process of deceleration, so the rotate z and translate x must become deceleration curves.
Animation 3
In animation 3, I used a small ball that can squash and stretch. The y-axis displacement of the small square can change the squash and stretch of the object. After the deformation, the ball will squash in the frame of landing because it touches the ground and forms an impact. Because of gravity, it will stretch in the first 1-2 frames and the last 1-2 frames of the landing, and then change back to the original shape when it reaches the highest value.
Animation 4
Animation 4 I used two small balls of different weights to show the bounce force and rebound effect of their different weights through curve adjustment. The number of bounces they bounce and the length of the x-axis displacement will vary. The light ball bounces back in the opposite direction after impact, but the attenuation of x-axis and y-axis is consistent, so I still do the same animation as animation 3, but the frame of collision selects to start the x-axis to the opposite direction, while the y-axis remains unchanged. Another heavy ball will be hit by a little less than the original X-axis displacement, because of the force in the opposite direction.
When sliding down from the diagonal, both balls are accelerating.
Animation 5
Animation 5 is that after watching the YouTube video, I modified it to make a ball that bounced many times. This is the most difficult one for me. At the same time, I also encountered some problems, because I changed the model of a ball that can be squashed and elongated. I found that the squash and stretch also need to be adjusted to match the motion trajectory when I keyed frames of its rotation. Here I need to be more careful to adjust, rotate, deform and curve track. However, I didn’t do well here. The teacher also proposed that I need to correct in the course.
All versions：https://vimeo.com/crystalxjy/review/473679975/8a7101663c
Part 3 — Bouncing Ball Maze
Animation Principles in ” Ball bouncing and Maze “
- squash and stretch
- timing
- arcs
- staging
- anticipation
For the bouncing ball maze, my goal is to do more than eight jumps, using the ball’s rotation and squash and stretching, and to show the animation principles of slow in and out and timing and staging. First of all, I arranged the magic palace. I hope that the ball will bounce with life and consciousness, and meet the inherent attributes of the ball.
In order to increase the flexibility of the ball, I gave it a jelly like squeeze and stretch twice every time it landed, and then returned to its normal shape.
In the first part, it makes a simple bounce and then enters an arc slide. The difficulty of this part is that the trajectory of the ball should fit the curve of the curve. At the same time, it is an acceleration movement. When sliding on the arc, the ball is in the shape of squash.
After hitting the cross, the cross turns rapidly, then decelerates, and finally tends to be stationary.
Here are two jumps. The second jump is faster than the first, and the squash and stretch is more exaggerated.
At this time, I realized that from the beginning to the present frame, I had already jumped three times and slid once, and the speed was very fast. According to the timing principle of animation, I should slow down the pace at this moment, so I let the ball have a movement of stretching out to explore. This action is relatively small and the rhythm is relatively slow.
The door opened with a small bounce, followed by a big, fast ejection. The addition of mushroom squash can increase the sense of strength to match the super deformation of the ball. Gravity makes the deformation slow down and return to its original shape.
After the ejection, there is a transparent pipe. The ball is squeezed and deformed in the pipe. After it comes out, it glides along the ring twice. First, it decelerates to the highest point and then accelerates. With the help of force, it jumps out to hit the wall and then rebounds back.
After a period of rotation and displacement, the rhythm slows down again. The ball bounces onto the pendulum with the help of spring, and then jumps with the help of more than ten frames glued to the pendulum, and finally falls into the cross and returns to the origin. At the first contact, it slows down and swings upward. When swinging downward, it accelerates the movement. It swings left and right twice, and finally stands still.
To concluded, in this animation, there are a lot of acceleration and deceleration motion, that is, slow in and slow out, which will make the object motion more in line with the physical properties. At the same time, in a long animation, there should be rhythm and slow progress, which can reduce the feeling of fatigue and monotony, that is, time and standing. Do not move two objects at the same time, because it will make the audience do not know which one to watch at the same time. Even if both objects need to move, the strong and weak actions should be distinguished.
Final vision: https://vimeo.com/crystalxjy/review/473680303/a696e99610
Tips: I’ve flashed back several times during the production process, and then I found that I could save the path here. And I learned a new skill. If Maya has a bug, delete the preference folder and reset the it.