Diving Into Pool Ball Exercise

This exercise refers to one of the animation principles, called Anticipation.

The ball Anticipates by Squashing against the springboard. This way it communicates to the audience and prepares for the next action which is the jump.

I am pretty happy with this animation, as the all creates a really nice arc when it jumps. That arc makes the jump more realistic and definitely not mechanical. The trembling of the springboard adds to the effectiveness of the whole animation but after I playblasted the animation, I noticed an issue with the ball. Before it jumps off the surface of the springboard, it goes through it a little.

Anticipation : small and large

The ball to the left shows small Anticipation which doesn't give us much information on what is going to happen. For instance, if the ball was a character who was about to leap into the air, he would have to prepare for the jump by crouching down, in order to build up energy just like a spring. The ball with small Anticipation may still look correct but it does not work well for storyboarding. But on the other hand, the second ball has large Anticipation and it almost looks like a rocket that is tacking off. First it Squashes, then it jumps - this way it builds up energy and takes off with power. The rotation that I have used when the ball Anticipates, gives it even more power which makes the whole animation more believable.






https://gifs.com/gif/5y0Y9v
Here is an example of how important the Anticipation is especially when it is used along with Squash and Stretch. In order to create a more powerful expresion the animator first squashes the face and then stretches it. On the right side of the gif is demonstrated the same character performing the same expresion but it looks rather unfinished in comparison with the one that squashes.

Newton's cradle

This exercise looks at the principle of Slow In and Slow Out. It turned out to work really well and look realistic and believable. This principle refers to the way that all movements start slow and build up speed during the action. Without Slow In and Slow Out all movements look mechanical. When I did the animation without playing around with the timing, it turned out looking static. To fix that, I used the Graph Editor to create that snappy feeling when the first or the last ball hits the one next to it. This way I avoided the mechanical feeling of the whole animation.

Tennis and Cannon Ball 

For this exercise I was asked to demonstrate the principle of Slide In Slide Out in order to show different weight of the objects.
The timing in this animation is the major thing that contributes to the good final product. We know that the tennis ball is way lighter that the cannon one and I had to figure out how to represent that idea using Slide In Slide Out. The high bounces and active rotation of the tennis ball make it appear light and believable. While the slow and clumsy movement of the cannon ball gives it weight and gives the audience to understand the difference between the two balls.

Example of Bad Timing in Animation

The main reason why the timing is bad is because it seems like the ball is pretty heavy since it falls fast. But after it hits the floor it starts bouncing which makes it looks unrealistic. Also, the bouncing intervals are with different timing and spacing.

If I had to improve this animation, I would change the timing of the fall, making it slightly slower because I think that the creator wanted the ball to be light. Another thing I would change is the timing of the bounces, which would make the ball look more realistic.

Cartoon vs Physics Bouncing Balls: Timing and Spacing

This exercise demonstrates the difference between a cartoon-based bouncing ball and a physics one.

The ball to the left (the cartoon-based one) contains much more exaggeration than the physics one. Although it uses the right amount of squash and stretch the first ball looks not as realistic, as the second one but it still seems correct and understandable because of the good timing I provided.

When I first did the physics-based ball, I didn't apply any squash and stretch because I thought that it would look more realistic. But I was wrong! After doing some research I found out that even objects that seem massive and heavy deform when hitting a surface, so I went back and corrected my mistake. Now it slightly deforms when bouncing off the surface and it looks much more realistic than before.

Dino Animation

This exercise did not work at all...  It looks like the dinosaur is hitting the floor too quick but the movement of the legs is good. The reason of the failure with this task is probably because I could not quite understand how the controllers work. There is nothing much to say about this animation except for that I can use it as an example of bad animation in future :D