Advanced Animation -EXERCISE

Advanced Animation-EXERCISE 1/2/3

30/4/2025-28/5/2025/

Yang Jiayi(0369288)

EXERCISE 1/2/3

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Lectures

Week 2

Animation Principles

• Frame rate：Frame rate (expressed in frames per second or FPS) is the frequency (rate) at which consecutive images (frames) are captured or displayed.
• Timing - Definition：The number of drawings used in any move determines the amount of time that action will take on the screen

• Spacing：
  
  
  

Animation is the Art of Timing

In the following studies, Teacher Kamal always emphasized the important factor of timing when marking homework.

Certainly for a film director, timing is the most important thing. For an animator, it's only half the battle. Animator needs the spacing too. We can have a natural feel for timing, but we have to learn the spacing of things.

• Arc：The visual path of an object or action is called an “arc”. This could be the projectile of a bouncing ball, the path of a moving arm, and even the movements of mouth corners during a dialogue scene.

Week 3

Squash and Stretch

• Elasticity of the material
•  Flexibility of motion
• Life

https://www.animationmentor.com/blog/squash-and-stretch-the-12-basic-principles-of-animation/

Animation Methods: Pose to Pose vs Straight Ahead

TYPE OF POSES:

• KEY
• EXTREME
• BREAKDOWN
• INBETWEEN

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INSTRUCTIONS

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Exercise Progerss

EXERCISE 1: BOUNCING BALL ANIMATION

Objective:
You are tasked with creating a smooth and realistic bouncing ball animation using provided ball rigs. The goal is to explore timing, spacing, arcs, and physical properties to showcase the unique characteristics of each type of ball.

The teacher arranged five bouncing ball animations, which are:

• Soccer Ball
• Ping Pong Ball
• Bowling Ball
• Beach Ball
• Squash and Stretch

We learned the basics of blender in class. We use the curve editor to change the motion path of the keyframes on the track. We need to change the curve by sliding the handle and update the path in time in the motion path to check the motion trajectory of the ball.Of course, before starting, I reviewed the timing, spacing, and arcs that I learned in the basics of animation so that I can better understand how to operate.

I started making the balls one by one, starting with Squash and Stretch so I could practice deformation, but I chose the wrong ball at first. When Kamal gave me feedback later, I realized that I would remake the trajectory of the two balls.

fig Ball squeeze

fig The ball rotates

Move the ball to the next peak position after the bounce, add a keyframe on the selected frame again, and edit the frame again. When we try to pull one end of the anchor point, the arc in the graphic will change, so we have to fix this problem. Right-click the anchor point and set the anchor point to "Free" so that it will not affect the other arc. However, I had a problem here at the beginning. There was no way to right-click and select to set the anchor point to free. I debugged it for a long time, and finally Teacher Kamal solved it for me.

I watched all the ball trajectories posted by the teacher on YouTube, and imitated the bouncing rhythm and the different landing positions of the balls. Because the balls are made of different materials, I used them as a reference to make them more natural.

I found the landing position and the mid-air position of the ball, set keyframes at key locations, and then went into the curve editor to adjust it to make the arc more rounded.

Squash and Stretch

I don't have many screenshots, but the problem with this is that the ball always spins strangely, the ball always suddenly turns to a very strange angle, which makes it look weird in the overall animation，The method Kamal sir taught us was to rotate the ball to the desired angle and then use two opposite balls to squeeze or stretch.

After getting feedback from the teacher, I found that there was a problem with my table tennis. A frame was missing in the middle, which did not look natural. I adjusted it for a long time and kept having problems. Fortunately, I finally adjusted it.

When rendering at the end, I also encountered a small problem. I didn’t know how to adjust the camera at the beginning, and the ball always jumped out of the camera. I adjusted it for a long time, and finally I practiced with the teacher on WhatsApp, and he gave me a screenshot to explain the solution. Select the camera in the outliner and adjust some of the property setting

Here is my final result:

Link：https://youtu.be/31k23zsxO7E

Exercise 2: Pendulum

The pendulum has an inertia problem. At the beginning, it swings three sections, but at the end, only one section will be left swinging.

You need to turn off the eye of the bone constraint, because it will make the two circles below follow the swing of the first circle, and the value at the bottom will be larger.

Here is my final result:

Link：https://youtu.be/dNJ9NRvBymI

Exercise 3 - Emotion Pose

This time the task was to create a series of expressive character poses that effectively portrayed different emotions. For each pose, we needed to find references and study the pose, including silhouettes, lines of action, balance, etc. I started looking for references online.

• Happy：The happy posture is more relaxed, with a larger range of motion. The movements show the hands spread out, the five fingers open and separated, the angle of the waist swing is different from the angle of the hips and legs, and the twist should have a certain amplitude.

At first, I started to adjust the large scale first, and then slowly adjusted the details. I chose the hand movement with five fingers open and raised the arm. The toes in the picture are pointing downwards, so I made a slight modification to make his toes feel like he was standing on tiptoes.

Then I felt that the range of motion was not large enough, so I adjusted the large，I adjusted the left knee to be more towards the right, further emphasizing the pose and making it more of a happy posture.

Then I adjusted the facial expressions. I changed the expressions using the pose library provided in the working file, but adjusted them slightly.

In week 13, I received feedback from my teacher based on the slides I made.

Feedback：The toes of the left foot do not need to be bent, and the hands need to be opened wider.

I moved my arms so they would expand back a little more.

• Scary：The scary pose, the reference picture shows the hands clenched, the elbows pressed tightly together, the back is bent, making him "curled up"

I lifted my butt and arms first, but I felt that the arms were more difficult to adjust than other parts, and I was unsure about the coordination between the upper arms and forearms.

I first adjusted the expression so that I would feel it was more in line with the action pose later.I adjusted his eyebrows to make him look scared.

I put my back up, showing a feeling of fear，I also adjusted my neck and leaned forward

Feedback：The back needs to bend forward a little more, and the center of gravity of the whole person needs to move backward. I adjusted it and felt it was strange, but after the modification, I showed it to the teacher again. The teacher didn't think it was strange. He just needed to follow the reference picture and let the hands stretch forward and not huddle together.

Move hands forward

• Sad：The sad posture should reflect the whole body curling up, which is a bit difficult for me. When sitting, you need to adjust your legs to make it look more natural, and your right hand should fall naturally on your knees.

I adjusted my fingers to make him look relaxed.

I adjusted my expression slightly

I added the background wall because I needed to find a support point behind him so that he could lean against it.

Feedback：Regarding this pose, the teacher said that it was impossible to evaluate it because the camera angle could not fully show the specific pose.

I couldn't touch my head with my hands in the sad pose I did before, so I tried it again this time. I adjusted the angle of my knees so that my head was slightly lower.

Adjust the camera angle

• Angry：Spread your five fingers, make your legs look like frog legs, and make your expression exaggerated.

Or adjust the overall posture first

There is a front-to-back relationship between the legs. I point the toes of my right foot inward.

The tilt of the eyebrows should be larger. I adjusted the distance between the eyebrows and the eyes to reduce the distance and slightly adjusted the cheekbones.

Then add the lights and background, and adjust the color of the background according to the mood of the protagonist

Feedback：Or follow the action according to the photo, open your arms wider

Results

fig Angry

fig Happy

fig Sad

fig Scary

Link：

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Hu-XGQV5dISFgDq5vwt8t2s3WRsvvDRw

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Reflection

For all these connections, he let me master the basic knowledge and operation of blender. I can also learn knowledge in class. After class, I will contact through the teacher's teaching video. I will encounter problems, but it can be solved by asking questions. 3D animation looks very interesting. It is interesting when adjusting the sitting posture. It changes the position by moving and rotating. In the bounce exercise of the ball, I also learned the knowledge explained in the lecture. I hope to learn more knowledge in the following projects.