Taking the previous week’s ball bounce a step further and creating an obstacle course for the ball to navigate proved a challenge that helped push my understanding of 3D space to a better level. Initially setting up the intended path in 3D space and creating a layout that would test me but not prove intensely difficult, I decided to add a ‘diving board’. The ball would add the principle of appeal and show character. Bouncing off the board falling downwards to help further my understanding of the effect on gravity. My intention was to create the feel of an ‘Olympic acrobat’ navigating these different objects fluently and confidently.
Drawing a plan for these, I used 2D drawing software to get the rough keyframes down and get an idea of the general performance across when going forward to animate, so I had a clear picture of where to begin. Retrospectively looking at my plan, I feel that while it blocks out the key concepts, the drawings themselves do not accurately reflect the intended motion, especially in retaining volume and timing and spacing. Going forward, I plan to improve my 2D drawing abilities alongside my 3D planning in order to create compelling planning thumbnails for characters and apply the elements of 2D animation (perhaps in TV Paint) to practise good time efficient workflows and get a good understanding of the industry workflows.
Looking at the finished version, while I think some areas were successful for a first attempt, such as aspects of the timing, spacing, squash and stretch, there are certain elements to reflect upon. At the start, I feel more weight could have been conveyed in the amount of pressure applied to the diving board initially, especially as it did not match the amount of squash and stretch applied to the ball. Also, considering Kenny Roys techniques and applying techniques from class, I improved the arc at the end to appear less dramatic and drop, as it seems to slightly change the course of direction like it is being pulled down by a magnet. The motion trail directly affects the curves in the graph editor and is editable directly in the viewport, indicating issues around any access keyframes and unordinary shapes of movement (Roy, 2014).
Researching rendering techniques, I looked into using the Arnold renderer, which required changing the materials of the obstacle course objects from lamberts to Ai standard surfaces, so they could show reflective surfaces and indicate the shade of the directional light. I add two directional lights, making one a shade of purple to match the objects’ colour scheme. After this, I added additional motion blur to heighten the feel of realism to the ball’s movements, but not so extensively. It took away from the prominent effect of the bounces.
References
Roy, K., 2014. How to cheat in Maya 2014. Abingdon: Focal Press, pp.104-105