Have you ever wondered how all those bouncing balls animations you saw were made? It seems that Maya has a secret ball bounce machine!
I began this animation some weeks ago and I've been working really slowly on it, I didn't have much time. It's the first animation I do that has a lot of objects looping and it was really fun a challanging to figure it out.
For anyone who's wondering how to make the first part, it's actually really easy. I used 3 different type of balls, a grey one, a red one and then a red one with a yellow circle around. The red balls are inside the grey box, so when a grey ball enters it stays there and I begin to animate the red ball coming out. As for the part where it adds the yellow circle, I switched off the visibility of the red ball and at the same time turned on the visibility of the last ball that already has the yellow circle parented to it. Thats how to make just 1 ball, for the rest of them, I just duplicated them 5 times and offset the keyframes.
I enjoyed animating it and I learnt a lot, I was surprised when I kept on learning stuff about a simple ball bounce! Now I'm thinking if I should add the Maya interface on the background when the ball is bouncing, so it looks as if it were recording a computer screen. As for what I'll animate next I have no idea yet, I'll think about it today.
- Jero
Friday, October 21, 2011
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Final Ball with Tail Animation!
I just decided to stop working on this animation since I just don't know how to improve the tail further, so it's time to move on to more complex exercises! I managed to improve the tail overlap a lot since the last animation and I'm quite happy with it, but I can still see that it doesn't look good but I don't know what else to do.
Today will be a short blog post so, here is the animation:
-Jero
Today will be a short blog post so, here is the animation:
-Jero
Friday, July 15, 2011
More Overlap
I've finally decided to get to work on the ball with tail animation. The last post is with the ball drawn in Flipbook, but I wanted to be able to make it in Maya. The problem was that the rig had some problems that were driving me crazy, such as the squash and stretch and the tail rotations; they didn't work well together.
So 1 month ago I decided I would try to make it, but I made like 3 attempts and they sucked really bad. I was having a lot of trouble animating the tail but the ball itself was also giving me a hard time. I should also say that I was being too ambitious with the animations, they were too hard to make as your first animation with overlap.
After the failed attempts, I decided to leave that animation aside for some time and I came up with a new idea. The idea for the animation was to show what a ball was feeling, just a simple sphere with a ring as a rig. The plan was to make it look sad and make another that was really excited, and I've done the sad one already. My next animation will probably be the excited one or a more complex test of the ball with the tail.
I will post all the animations I have been doing these month, the ball with tail animation and the sad ball one. I also made a little test in FlipBook after watching a Jason Ryan tutorial on his website which I'll post. Oh and for the ball with tail animation, I will post 2 videos, one has a lot of overlap and the other has a lot less. Finally I'd like to thank everyone who gave me critiques on these animations, they were really helpful!
TIPS! Here are some helpful things I have learnt in this month:
1º- If it's the first time you are animating a ball with a tail, I suggest you don't use squash and stretch. On the 3 failed attempts I did before, I tried using squash and stretch until a friend told me not to do so at first so that it would be easier. I suggest you only move the ball across the screen and up and down and just use rotation. You can try adding squash and stretch after you have finished animating everything, but it's better to make your first tests without it.
Also, tails don't really overlap much on animals. If you look at reference of a squirrel or a fox running, the tail won't overlap a lot, the tip and the last joints just move a bit. Take a look at the tail from Scrat on Ice Age and you will see that it doesn't move much.
Here are some helpful links!
FlyingFox Rig: http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/flyingfox--2
Jason Ryan Ramp-Up Tutorials: http://jrawebinar.com/index.php/resources/ramp-up-tutorials.html
Well thats it! Here are the animations.
Ball with tail animation
The same one, but with less overlap
The Sad Ball
Flipbook Overlap Test
Thanks for Reading!
Jero
So 1 month ago I decided I would try to make it, but I made like 3 attempts and they sucked really bad. I was having a lot of trouble animating the tail but the ball itself was also giving me a hard time. I should also say that I was being too ambitious with the animations, they were too hard to make as your first animation with overlap.
After the failed attempts, I decided to leave that animation aside for some time and I came up with a new idea. The idea for the animation was to show what a ball was feeling, just a simple sphere with a ring as a rig. The plan was to make it look sad and make another that was really excited, and I've done the sad one already. My next animation will probably be the excited one or a more complex test of the ball with the tail.
I will post all the animations I have been doing these month, the ball with tail animation and the sad ball one. I also made a little test in FlipBook after watching a Jason Ryan tutorial on his website which I'll post. Oh and for the ball with tail animation, I will post 2 videos, one has a lot of overlap and the other has a lot less. Finally I'd like to thank everyone who gave me critiques on these animations, they were really helpful!
TIPS! Here are some helpful things I have learnt in this month:
1º- If it's the first time you are animating a ball with a tail, I suggest you don't use squash and stretch. On the 3 failed attempts I did before, I tried using squash and stretch until a friend told me not to do so at first so that it would be easier. I suggest you only move the ball across the screen and up and down and just use rotation. You can try adding squash and stretch after you have finished animating everything, but it's better to make your first tests without it.
Also, tails don't really overlap much on animals. If you look at reference of a squirrel or a fox running, the tail won't overlap a lot, the tip and the last joints just move a bit. Take a look at the tail from Scrat on Ice Age and you will see that it doesn't move much.
Here are some helpful links!
FlyingFox Rig: http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/character-rigs/c/flyingfox--2
Jason Ryan Ramp-Up Tutorials: http://jrawebinar.com/index.php/resources/ramp-up-tutorials.html
Well thats it! Here are the animations.
Ball with tail animation
The same one, but with less overlap
The Sad Ball
Flipbook Overlap Test
Thanks for Reading!
Jero
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Tail Overlap
It has been a lot of days since my last post and here is why: after having finished the pendulum animation, I attempted the ball with a tail animation and I just couldn't get it right. The rig I had didn't help much, it complicated things more and it was hard to focus only on the overlap. I made like 2 tests and they were horrible.
Then I decided to move on to a walk cycle. I spent a whole day reading some tutorials and books until I understood very clearly what each part of the body did. The following day I made my first try and the blocking looked quite good, but when I began to polish it I ran into a problem. I was having the hips move in some nice arcs and the spacing was good, and I did the same with the feet. The problem was that the knees were going crazy, and I didn't know how to fix it. If I changed the curves of the hips and feet to fix the knee pops, the hips and feet would look bad. After a few more tries I got really tired of it and decided I would try it again some other day.
After being insisted upon like 100 times by Tony Chau and Reed Arneson, I went back to the ball with a tail animation. BUT! This time it would be different, they told me to animate the ball jumping around and then draw the tail on top on Flipbook. After like 3 attempts I finally managed to get it looking quite good. I still don't like how the tail looks when it squashes before the jump. My next animation will probably be an animation of the tail in Maya.
TIPS! Today I thought that I could add a tip at the end of each post of something very important I learned on each animation. So, lets check some useful stuff when it comes to animating a ball with a tail.
1º - Choose if you will animate a BALL with a tail or an ANIMAL with a tail. The difference on how they jump is huge, the rotations are the total opposite.
Here is how the rotations would look if you were animating a bouncing ball that was alive and could move by its own:
But notice how the rotations change if you are animating an animal running, for example a squirrel. The rotations are the opposite since the animals land with their front paws, not their back!
If you are animating a ball, I suggest that you leave that white ring in the middle so you can see the rotations, they look quite good on the ball. On the other hand, if you are making an animal, I'd hide the white ring because it looks much better without it when you play it.
Extra Tip: Don't have the part where the tail is attachd to the ball bend up too much and remember to have the tip of the tail pointing towards where it came from, ALWAYS! A big thanks for Tony Chau for being patient enough to teach me all this stuff!
Thanks for Reading!
Jero
Then I decided to move on to a walk cycle. I spent a whole day reading some tutorials and books until I understood very clearly what each part of the body did. The following day I made my first try and the blocking looked quite good, but when I began to polish it I ran into a problem. I was having the hips move in some nice arcs and the spacing was good, and I did the same with the feet. The problem was that the knees were going crazy, and I didn't know how to fix it. If I changed the curves of the hips and feet to fix the knee pops, the hips and feet would look bad. After a few more tries I got really tired of it and decided I would try it again some other day.
After being insisted upon like 100 times by Tony Chau and Reed Arneson, I went back to the ball with a tail animation. BUT! This time it would be different, they told me to animate the ball jumping around and then draw the tail on top on Flipbook. After like 3 attempts I finally managed to get it looking quite good. I still don't like how the tail looks when it squashes before the jump. My next animation will probably be an animation of the tail in Maya.
TIPS! Today I thought that I could add a tip at the end of each post of something very important I learned on each animation. So, lets check some useful stuff when it comes to animating a ball with a tail.
1º - Choose if you will animate a BALL with a tail or an ANIMAL with a tail. The difference on how they jump is huge, the rotations are the total opposite.
Here is how the rotations would look if you were animating a bouncing ball that was alive and could move by its own:
Extra Tip: Don't have the part where the tail is attachd to the ball bend up too much and remember to have the tip of the tail pointing towards where it came from, ALWAYS! A big thanks for Tony Chau for being patient enough to teach me all this stuff!
Thanks for Reading!
Jero
Thursday, April 7, 2011
The pendulum!
Some minutes ago I finally finished the pendulum animation after a week of work! I didn't actually work every single day in it, and I didn't dedicate many hours to it, but I did it slow and steady and finally have a playblast.
When I began working on it, as always, I was disappointed with the beginning. After thousands of changes it began to look good and one thing that I learned was how important blocking is to be organized. I began animating the pendulum in spline mode because I thought that was it had few controls, it'd take me an hour to finish and blocking it was a waste of time. It turns out I had to start it all over again and blocking it in an organized way.
After some critiques and changes it began to look good and I feel I've finally understood how overlap works, I think I've thought the same thing hundreds of times, and I will continue to think the same in some years. Spacing also surprised me, it's incredible how important it is and how much I keep learning of it in every exercise. Enough talk, here is the animation!
- Jero
When I began working on it, as always, I was disappointed with the beginning. After thousands of changes it began to look good and one thing that I learned was how important blocking is to be organized. I began animating the pendulum in spline mode because I thought that was it had few controls, it'd take me an hour to finish and blocking it was a waste of time. It turns out I had to start it all over again and blocking it in an organized way.
After some critiques and changes it began to look good and I feel I've finally understood how overlap works, I think I've thought the same thing hundreds of times, and I will continue to think the same in some years. Spacing also surprised me, it's incredible how important it is and how much I keep learning of it in every exercise. Enough talk, here is the animation!
- Jero
Sunday, March 20, 2011
The Wave Principle!
Some weeks ago I finally finished with the ball bounces animations, at least for some time, so I decided to move on to the next stage, the pendulum!
Last week I began working on a pendulum animation but I was having a lot of trouble, I just couldn't make it look right. The problem I had was that the last time I had animated a pendulum was probably 5 months ago and by then, the animation looked "good" to my eye. Now that I look at it, I see how bad it was, and now I'm having trouble improving it because I haven't learend new things about pendulums!
Hopefully, Tony Chau (check his blog on the links section, he's an AM student and I've never met someone who knows as much of body mechanics and principles as him) suggested me to study the wave principle. I'd never heard of it before, maybe with other names, but I'd never paid attention to it. Anyways, after some research I kind of understood the idea so I opened up Maya and rigged some kind of tentacle that looked like an inverted pendulum.
I failed the first time I animated it, the timing was a mess, and I didn't even have defined what was an extreme or a breakdown, so I deleted everything and grabbed a pencil and sheet of paper. I laid out the extreme poses, breakdowns and while I did that and drew this kind of tentacle, I finally understood the idea of the wave principle. I went back to Maya and made the animation super organized, I used 4 extreme poses and 4 breakdowns. After checking the spacing and then messing up with the timing a bit, I polished the last things and did a playblast. Luckily, I really liked it and I could feel the wave effect. So, here is how it looks. Now I have to go back to my pendulum and apply all this stuff that I've learned!
-- Jero
Last week I began working on a pendulum animation but I was having a lot of trouble, I just couldn't make it look right. The problem I had was that the last time I had animated a pendulum was probably 5 months ago and by then, the animation looked "good" to my eye. Now that I look at it, I see how bad it was, and now I'm having trouble improving it because I haven't learend new things about pendulums!
Hopefully, Tony Chau (check his blog on the links section, he's an AM student and I've never met someone who knows as much of body mechanics and principles as him) suggested me to study the wave principle. I'd never heard of it before, maybe with other names, but I'd never paid attention to it. Anyways, after some research I kind of understood the idea so I opened up Maya and rigged some kind of tentacle that looked like an inverted pendulum.
I failed the first time I animated it, the timing was a mess, and I didn't even have defined what was an extreme or a breakdown, so I deleted everything and grabbed a pencil and sheet of paper. I laid out the extreme poses, breakdowns and while I did that and drew this kind of tentacle, I finally understood the idea of the wave principle. I went back to Maya and made the animation super organized, I used 4 extreme poses and 4 breakdowns. After checking the spacing and then messing up with the timing a bit, I polished the last things and did a playblast. Luckily, I really liked it and I could feel the wave effect. So, here is how it looks. Now I have to go back to my pendulum and apply all this stuff that I've learned!
-- Jero
Monday, March 7, 2011
Almost there...
This is one of the last ball bounces animation finally! It's the light and heavy ball animation as I've said before and I've just finished it. I've started it like 2 weeks ago and I didn't work much on it at the beginning, especially when I had to animate the light ball. I had never animated a light ball so it was a new challenge but after deleting and redoing a lot of times it's finally finished! Thanks everyone for your critiques and advice. Now I'm just missing an obstacle course animation! Here it is:
-- Jero
-- Jero
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Another Ball Bounce!
It has been a lot of weeks since I last posted because I went on holidays and if I had time to animate I would do more ball bounces. Yesterday I finished animating what could be my last clichè bouncing ball with rotations and I'm very happy with the result. I plan on animating a rubber ball, a light ball, asuper heavy ball and one last obstacle course animation before I move on.
This animation took me 1 day. First I animated the ball on the Y axis, then I added the X axis and finally the rotations. For the rotations I muted the Translate Y channel and simply rotated the ball as it rolled on the floor. I ended up adding a couple of changes like more height and changes in spacing and this is the result!
- Jero
This animation took me 1 day. First I animated the ball on the Y axis, then I added the X axis and finally the rotations. For the rotations I muted the Translate Y channel and simply rotated the ball as it rolled on the floor. I ended up adding a couple of changes like more height and changes in spacing and this is the result!
- Jero
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