Task 4: Pose-to-Pose vs. Straight Ahead, Squash and Stretch, Easing and Arcs

Pose-Pose - Key frames are produced first before the in-between frames 

Straight Ahead - Linear production of each frame, (1-2-3-4...)
Stretch - A form of exaggeration when an object stretches, without breaking or tearing, when it reaches high velocity
Squash - A form of exaggeration when an object impacts with a surface, deforming from force|
Ease - Illustrating an object's speed; acceleration/deceleration 

In this task, I had to produce a stop-motion animation of a straight ball bouncing. The goal of this task is to illustrate the stretch and squash elements of a ball; when the ball is falling/bouncing back up, the ball would stretch and when the ball contacts the ground/surface, then the ball would squash. Both essential to illustrate the energy of the ball.

For reference, my partner dropped a ball from chest height to see how high the ball will bounce from it's initial height. We discovered that it bounces to either 3/4 or around half of it's initial height. Using that as a reference, we created our straight ball bouncing animation using the Dragonframe software. 

 

The unedited version of the animation had two copies of each frame for good measures. The issue of this was that the speed of the ball falling was not as fast as it should be, therefore it was edited to make the ball fall faster, more realistic. 

 

After editing it, the easing of the ball falling is more clear, introducing weight and gravity to the animation.

After illustrating ease through the straight ball bouncing animation, we explored the concept of relief; the concept of illustrating the decreasing bounces of the ball. Using the same software, my partner and I created another bouncing ball animation through stop-motion.

Reference

From the straight ball bouncing animation, to this more dynamic approach, the exaggeration of how the ball stretches and squashes effects the animation significantly as it makes the motion of the ball more dynamic. Moreover incorporating easing also creates a sense of realism as the speed of the ball falling and it bouncing back up at 3/4 of the fall speed does make the ball seem more weighted and more believable.

Diving into the topic of arcs, arcs describes an trajectory of a natural motion; motion that does not more linearly rather in curves. In this task, we used rotoscope technique to animate a pendulum done in Photoshop.

Reference

After creating the pendulum through using the rotoscope technique on Photoshop, we then had to use stop-motion animation create an animation illustrating arc using a pencil.



After gaining feedback of this animation from a class critique, I learnt that there were some mistakes in my animation. Some common ones were that the vertical frame of the pencil could be removed so that the easing of the pencil would be smoother. Furthermore one of the starting frame; of the pencil's starting position can also be removed so that it would be loop-able. After gaining feedback, I made changes accordingly.



To conclude utilising the rotoscope technique to animate can allow me to easily illustrate ease as the motion of the object has already been captured, and all there's left to do is trace the object. Whilst by using stop-motion animation, the movement of the object is in your control and each frame is decided by yourself; therefore the outcome would not be as natural as the rotoscope. However, by using stop-motion, I am able to control the placement and the easing of the object more easily as every placement and frame is controlled.