Study Task 4 - The Great Bouncing Ball Challenge

Part A

Exploring straight ahead animation, I shaped a piece of plasticine into a ball and using Dragonframe, animated it dropping on the floor. This way, I could focus on timing by squashing and stretching the ball so that it portrayed different speeds at different heights.



Link to Ball Drop

Part B

Using footage I filmed in person and also referencing a diagram depicting arcs, I animated using the same software, a ball bouncing across the floor. This time however, I practiced pose-to-pose animation as I needed to make sure the ball was at the correct height after each bounce.



Link to Ball Bounce

Part C

In groups of four, we animated a pendulum swing in Dragonframe. Because we used a pencil, we didn't have the power to manipulate the object the same way we could a ball of plasticine so, we needed to look into easing to capture that sense of speed.



I made a conscious effort to keep the tip of the pencil in the same position and also rotated the pencil as we animated so it appeared to be rolling. However, I feel the timing is a little too mechanical.

Link to Pendulum Swing

We then had a couple lessons in Photoshop experimenting with rotoscoping. I began by doing a quick sketch of a ball on a string however I wanted to refine this by adding a 3D element as well as colour to the animation. By doing so however, I lost the means that allowed it to loop as the ball spun slightly which meant the first and final frame didn't match up.



Link to Ball Swing

Part D

Applying the skills I had learned from the rotoscoping lesson, I animated a short looping clip of a pair of crocs that explored the principles we have covered so far. I particularly paid attention to squash and stretch, easing, and timing. As the theme of the project was "shoes" these movements were more subtle as I focused them in the expressions, especially the eyes, of my personified croc. I also added a couple flies to my final animation to further demonstrate these principles.



In future, I need to work on simplifying the task as I feel the clip above didn't need half as many frames as I had animated and if my knowledge of Photoshop was more developed, I'm sure I could have found a way to avoid adding these unnecessary frames.

Link to Final Animation


Link to Reference Video (Part A)
Link to Reference Video (Part B)
Link to Reference Video (Part C)