Task Six: Bouncing Balls (with Contact)
Part One: Recorded Reference Footage
This task was fairly interesting. I decided to use a Tennis Ball and a Football as reference for my upcoming Contact Animation Task, and throw them towards one another. I wanted to create an interesting composition and slightly more dynamic animation in comparison to Task 4 which had a single direction Translation.
To specify the Frames and Numbers, I used Premiere Pro. I have used Premiere Pro to render my previous animations, but it would be my first time doing something like this with the Application. It simplified my analysis of each frame and captures the Translation and Rotation visuals of each ball.
When producing my work, I realised there were certain issues with my recording. I did not have a clear side view of the two balls I tried to contact, so I would struggle with accurately seeing how the bounces move. In addition, I caught the ball before it bounced and came to rest, so I fairly struggled with the arcs of motion and the rotation of the balls. I was unable to redo this recording due to lack of resources to do so, and it was a struggle to find reference footages which would fit the assignments and the constraints given. e.g. frame rate, types of balls, etc.
Principles of Animation Recognised: Staging, Keys & Breakdown.
Part Two: Animating the Contact
Upon working on the task, I found out early into my work that I recorded my reference footage with several issues that made it extremely difficult for it to be used as a reference. It was recorded at a low angle rather than a wide shot, which made it incredibly difficult to see accurately how the balls came in contact with each other and came to rest. Another issue I encountered was how I stopped the football from continuing to bounce, which I did to prevent people in my common area from being affected by my research. I had a lot of restrictions in the area I recorded this footage in, and I was unable to redo it due to a lack of resources.
Even with a poor reference footage, I decided to continue on since I had no known alternatives. The task was quite similar to Task Five: the football was a very similar bounce and it went in one direction throughout. The Tennis Ball would translate towards the Football, but once the contact occurred, then it would translate nearly perpendicular to the initial direction; I think conveying this translation and rotation to the audience was potentially the most challenging task so far. It was a challenge to display the footage of the bouncing balls coming to a rest since they would be out of the frame. I resolved this by using a new Camera and keying in frames.
When the Balls come in contact, the Tennis Ball is thrown far while the Contact Ball spins a little more than it already was. This idea of force was an idea I needed to convey to create a believable sequence, and that was based heavily on the weight, size, and force of these two objects. I am quite pleased with how it turned out.
If there was anything I would improve on this task, it would have been the reference footage. After this task, I seem to have improved on understanding Timing and Motion, which I fairly struggled with previously.
Principles of Animation Recognised: Staging, Squash & Stretch, Keys & Breakdown, Pose to Pose, Timing & Spacing & Easing, Slow In & Slow Out, Arcs.
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