Principles of 2D Animation (SEE PAGE 4)

[Bassken Lake Monster]

whee @___@ I haven't started the lessons yet. I figured right now it would be more of an ice breaker if we did the 10x10x10 contest first. That being said, I will hold off on the animation lessons until the 10k contest is over if that's alright with everyone?  

[Quvi]

Feuilles

Where is sensei? cool

I figure I'd try the bouncing ball.. Video here
I ran out of paper to do the second bounce redface Didn't know it would take so many frames.. Done "straight ahead", will try keyframes next time

If anyone has any suggestions for a better webcam, please let me know (I lost the cord to my scanner) sweatdrop My laptop has one built in but I can't angle it to shoot the paper
I am using a pad of paper clamped down to my table.

I thought it helps to draw the framework but a little hassle to have to erase after all the frames are drawn..

Hey, not bad. The problem with going straight ahead instead of doing keys/ doing a layout before animating is that size jittering is possible. If you look at your bounce, the ball gets noticeably smaller at the height of the bounce.

Also, the landing of the ball's bounce could use work. It looks like you were going for the exaggerated approach, which is fine to do, but you didn't set up enough anticipation frames to make it look like a legit exaggeration. The ball will not make a U shape from such a normal bounce. It should squash slightly into an oval, then spring back up in its normal shape (assuming it's an elastic/tennis ball of some sort).

You do not need 40+ frames to animate a bounce and a half. It is a common mistake; over-animating. It looks like you spent a majority of paper at the height of the beginning, where the ball came in slow. You can definitely spread them out a bit more, or shoot them on 2's for a slowed down effect.  

[Feuilles]

Hey Bassken, sounds good. Will give me some time to redo the assignment

Quvi

Feuilles

I figure I'd try the bouncing ball.. Video here
I ran out of paper to do the second bounce redface Didn't know it would take so many frames.. Done "straight ahead", will try keyframes next time

If anyone has any suggestions for a better webcam, please let me know (I lost the cord to my scanner) sweatdrop My laptop has one built in but I can't angle it to shoot the paper
I am using a pad of paper clamped down to my table.

I thought it helps to draw the framework but a little hassle to have to erase after all the frames are drawn..

Hey, not bad. The problem with going straight ahead instead of doing keys/ doing a layout before animating is that size jittering is possible. If you look at your bounce, the ball gets noticeably smaller at the height of the bounce.

Also, the landing of the ball's bounce could use work. It looks like you were going for the exaggerated approach, which is fine to do, but you didn't set up enough anticipation frames to make it look like a legit exaggeration. The ball will not make a U shape from such a normal bounce. It should squash slightly into an oval, then spring back up in its normal shape (assuming it's an elastic/tennis ball of some sort).

You do not need 40+ frames to animate a bounce and a half. It is a common mistake; over-animating. It looks like you spent a majority of paper at the height of the beginning, where the ball came in slow. You can definitely spread them out a bit more, or shoot them on 2's for a slowed down effect.

Thanks for the critique! By the way It is 24 FPS and 46 frames total. I did 7 in the beginning, 4 on the bounce, and 4 when it's in mid-air before making the final dive. I notice I didn't space the ball far enough in this last one so it looks like it freezes mid-air XD
I read bassken's review on Xeno_Mezphy's animation. Will try to keep both of your suggestions in mind next time  

[zenoxy]

Can I ask whether you used a light board for that?


Basically what Quvi said. The best course (in my opinion) is story boarding your animation.

Draw out stills of the most IMPORTANT actions and just slowly fill in the gap---edit along the way to match motion or delete frames/consolidate motions or add frames and make the animation take a slower more dramatic turn.

What I say might sound confusing and it's probably conflicting xD
Basing it off two books on animating I once read.  

[Bassken Lake Monster]

Zeno, are you talking about drawing the key frames first? :3

Quvi, great job on the critique biggrin

Feuilles, try shooting the animation on 2's like Quvi suggested. This means capture each drawing twice. It will lengthen your animation as well as save you some drawing time. The frames when played, go by so fast the eye won't notice if you capture each frame twice rather than once.

With this in mind, you can draw bigger gaps between the action poses and the eye will fill in the rest.  

[zenoxy]

I think so----I'm not quite sure how to word it, but like the way I do mine is (especially if it's not a clean loop) draw 1st keyframe, draw last keyframe.

Like the bouncing ball.

Draw it's entrance(wherever that may be) then the exit(also wherever)

Then start to map out all the times it bounces at it's peak, as well as where it lands and garners force.

Fill in what's in between and edit however you see fit-----but that was based on a little pamphlet I read once in BestSeller alongside a book on animating the traditional way.

I found it to be useful, but there are other ways that are probably ten times better xD  

[Feuilles]

Thanks! I do like how smooth it moves, but I'd agree it's better to save on this kind of action

zenoxy, no light box.. sweatdrop Not only did I run out of paper, but the sun went down lol. Animation is shot in the dark with a desk lamp. I need a better one.
I think I would be able to do the keys if I had a light box, I can only see the previous frame the way I do it now. But maybe with a light box you see more frames...
I'm thinking of getting one by Artograph. The price seems okay

So I'm stuck for now, or I'll draw it on computer.  

[zenoxy]

Oh! I see----in some light boxes(mine is make shift) you might be able to see through more than 5 sheets of paper with maybe 20 being the max or so.


Mine is just a flat microwave glass thing (that plate you see in microwaves that holds up the food and rotates it) and like a lamp underneath it xd


I don't record or scan those because to me that sounds too tedious.



IF you are loking for animating programs there are a few----if you want the closest feel to animating traditionally, TvPaint and Retas! are two really good programs----I'm not sure about ProjectDogwaffle, but I hear it's pretty damn good.

I've run through dozens of animating programs----and a not a lot of them have very good drawing tools or pressure sensitive scripts in it. Another one is Digicel Flipbook.
I personally don't like Toonboom anything.

but some programs like Flash(mx or CS) are also very good for light and restricted animating (not very traditional looking, focuses more on clean cartoons vector style)

They might be pricey.