A Second Bouncing Ball With a Twist!

My Second Bouncing Ball!

Hello! So I got done making my second animation and it was very interesting to make and was much more fun than the last project/animation I made. For this project we used a new rule of animation, arcs, and we improved on the fundamentals we learned from the last project. The animation process was a very long process; however this process allowed us time to work on the animation in much more detail and lets us add a more personal spin on the ending.

Making the Animation

While making the animation, instead of making the part taller and then wider we made the opposite; wider and then taller. This allowed for the work to be much longer and allowed more room to work. The animation process was almost untouched since last project but there was one catch; we had to make arcs for the ball to follow. The way we did this was we used the paint tool on a layer of the animation before hand to basically make a path to follow. This change made animating the ball a much longer process because more layers were needed to be added to make the ball move. Also, if you look at the ball closely when it  hits the ground you will notice its expression change. The way we did this is that we made 2 layers with a smiling ball and a squashed ball. Throughout the project I just copied that layer of the face I wanted and transformed it to the way I wanted it to look. So for the fading orange: the orange that fades in and out in the beginning and end is the "twean". "Tweanning" is a process that makes multiple frames according to one frame and makes them fade in and out. This process makes a curtain like effect and is just pleasing to the eye.

The Final Product and Issues I encountered

A couple of things could of gone much better in this project but the end product was pretty good. I had A LOT of trouble with the animation layers/frames. These turned out to be the biggest challenge within the project because of how many frames needed to be made in order to make the animation. The animation could look much more solid if I had more time to work on the animation frames themselves and not worry about anything else (but lets be real, that's NOT gonna happen any time soon). Another issue I encountered was the hook at the end of the animation, specifically the frames of the hook. The hook originally was made under one layer, which is not what is needed to animate it. The hook needs to be separate from the background so I could move it so it hooks the face. This situation quickly was solved but the issue was something that still bothered me.

My First Animation in Ecomm

This is the first animation I've ever made! The process of making the animation is very interesting and was cool to learn about. While animating the ball bouncing I learned 2 of the fundamentals of animation and they are "ease in and ease out" and "squash and stretch". These fundamentals are to make your eye see a realistic motion in the animation and to deceive your eye.

The Process of this animation.

 The "ease in and ease out" process is actually very important in animation, it makes the animation look realistic. The process makes the frames within the animation adapt to the process of the animation to make things "ease" into being slow and "ease" into being fast. The closer the frames of the ball is to each other the faster the ball goes. "Squash and stretch" is the other process we learned and it deals with another principle that is EXAGGERATE EVERYTHING. In animation you want to exaggerate everything to make it look more interesting and energetic. So squash and stretch is  when you stretch the object you animate to create the appearance of motion. Both of these techniques are used to create a sense of realistic motion within the animation.

What I could of done better/what I can improve on.

I really enjoy the results that I made but I believe some things could of gone better. Half way into the project I had an issue with size margins and how my animation was only a fraction of the huge document size so I wasn't able to save it correctly. Another issue I had was that when you "squash and stretch" you are suppose to make your sizes still equivalent meaning that if its stretched it still hold the same about of area. I had a bit of trouble finding the perfect size for each frame and it was a big hassle but after practice I will get a lot better.