Author: Kewin Marcin Skrzekut

Critique ball with tail in spline & planning the weight shift exercise.

The Center of Gravity COG

For Humans:
The centre of gravity (COG) for humans is typically located around the hips or pelvis. This is where the main control resides in character rigs, serving as the foundation for natural movement.

For Hero Characters:
For hero characters, the COG shifts to the chest, reflecting their predominant movements, such as flying or leaping through the air. This adjustment enhances the believability of their superhuman abilities.

Maintaining Balance:
To ensure proper balance in animation, it’s essential to apply correct weight distribution within the positive space of the character’s body mass. This helps achieve a sense of realism and stability in movement.

COG exercise

The following images present the outcome of the exercise, practicing the COG by aligning the bony rig with poses corresponding to the reference images. Where the red marking is Gerorge’s feedback.

Forward jump

Posing with the use of the live-action snapshot reference, is to ensure the accuracy of the physical logic, and distribution of the weight in consideration of the COG, however, the animator role is to go one step beyond, to make it visually appealing with use of exaggeration and assymetry.

Kneeling jump

Kneeling jump breakdown of action, video source: 3 Exercises To INCREASE YOUR VERTICAL Pt.2 | JUMP HIGHER | The Lost Breed used as the reference. Breakdown including the anticipation: hand movement that implies the preparation for the jump, stretch and squash of the spine, marked with the ball reference under each pose, pendulum consideration where the hands follow the chest and pelvis moving up front.

This example was broken down correctly; however, it is visually uninteresting because the posing throughout the action is symmetrical. Animation should aim for asymmetrical posing, as this allows for more variation in the line of action, making the movement appear more dynamic. Animation has the advantage over real-life action in that movements can be exaggerated. Considering this, the current example is far too dull to justify the time spent animating it.

A ball with tail spline animation feedback

• Managed to make progress, and achieve fluid motion of the tail.
• Need to pay more attention to the timing and spacing. The allocation of frames is incorrect, which results it the undesired movement. More specifically, instead of jumping to falling, jumping to flying and coming down was delivered. Rule of the thumb is that more frames are allocated for the ease in and ease out, as the character accelerates upward or downwards, to show the gradual movement.

Body weight shift planning > blocking > spline exercise

Instructions & Guidance (notes from in-class talk)

1. Setting Up the Basics

1.0 Change Default Tangents to Stepped

Switch the default tangent to “stepped” mode to make it easier to block out key poses and focus on timing.

1.1 Create a Default Pose

Start with a neutral default pose. Use both the front and left views to ensure accuracy and alignment.

1.2 Set Up a Quick Selection Tool

Create a quick selection tool for all the controllers, excluding the root controller. This will streamline the animation process and save time during adjustments.

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2. Anticipation: Adding Realism to Movement

2.1 Offset for Anticipation

Introduce anticipation by slightly offsetting the pose in the opposite direction of the intended movement. This creates a sense of tension and preparation before the action begins.

2.2 Incremental Adjustments

Use the “+” or “−” keys to control the gizmo for incremental adjustments. Remember:

• A larger gizmo results in smaller, more precise movements.
• Set the foot roll to 100 and adjust it in the graph editor across the entire animation timeline for consistency.

2.3 Create Multiple Anticipation Poses

Develop around 4 anticipation poses to build a dynamic and fluid movement.

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3. Weight Shift: Crafting the Contact Pose

3.1 Clean Up Between Poses

Reset all values to 0 before moving on to the next pose. This ensures clarity and reduces errors.

3.2 Define the Contact Pose

The contact pose is critical for establishing the weight shift. When the hips take the weight, the body naturally leans toward the supporting side. Add subtle rotation in the direction of the hip movement to enhance realism.

Shooting reference

Creating a video reference in front and side views for the body weight shift involved ensuring the camera was stable. Both perspectives needed to match precisely in timing, as two different cameras were used to capture the reference. The footage was then aligned in Premiere Pro, and consecutive frames were screenshotted for breakdown purposes, making it clear how to perform blocking for the action.

The image below shows the collection of screenshots, presenting consecutive frames of the action, which served as a reference for my blocking process.

Body weight shift study: breaking down in class demo

The image below shows my investigation of the class demo on the body weight shift, as explained to us with consideration of both the front and side views.

Observations/Notes:

• The body moves slightly in the opposite direction before the action is undertaken, providing a visual clue for anticipation.
• This is followed by a significant movement toward the intended direction to build up anticipation.
• It is crucial to consider the COG (centre of gravity) as a reference point when performing blocking to ensure that the poses in the blocking are accurate and physically make sense.
• As the weight of the body shifts, the COG shifts, requiring adjustments to the character’s poses.
• The feet move in such a way that, in the side view, the trajectory forms an arc, ensuring organic movement.
• The step to the side starts from the heel unless the animation is intentionally depicting a tiptoeing character (like a Pink Panther, for example).
• The passing pose is an approximation of symmetry, with the centre of gravity positioned in the middle due to even weight distribution across both legs.
• The contact pose, following the passing pose, involves dragging the foot. By analogy to the pendulum exercise, as the body shifts to the side after the step, the other foot follows by being dragged. This must be accentuated in the animation.
• As the foot is dragged, it moves upwards with the heel, while the toes remain in contact with the ground. This creates a distinction between local dragging (toes) and global dragging (leg). Both must be carefully implemented to ensure accurate movement.

My submission on SyncSketch: Body weight shift -> front_weight shift_01

Critiquing Ball with Tail planning and blocking & Ball with Tail animation in spline exercise



Tailed ball animation in blocking feedback

Blocking animation submission on SyncSketch: Tailed ball -> fox jumping01

First of all, I overthought things and got it completely wrong by ignoring everything I had learned about animating the bouncing ball. Keep it simple, stupid!

Regarding the Bouncing Ball

I came across a blog, a tutorial, and other people’s animations, and I learned that when you jump (like an athlete), the path you’re creating in the Y-coordinate space—which describes your height—is not a perfect parabola. This is because of the friction that affects your body as it moves through the air. While this is true, I exaggerated it too much.

In reality, the path still follows a parabola, representing an organic movement with ease-in and ease-out. It may slightly deviate, becoming more pronounced on the left side of the curve, but it still represents the pathway from the floor to the highest point of the jump, where the body momentarily stays in the air before it begins to fall.

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Regarding the Blocking

The blocking confused me when I initially planned the animation. I sketched out triangular motion trails for the jumps, but it should have been a parabola!
Fair enough—when Maya is set to linear tangent interpolation and the trail option is displayed, it shows these triangular shapes. However, this isn’t mechanical; it’s an organic motion, so the path should still resemble a parabola.

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Regarding the Tail

The tail should follow a similar trajectory to the ball, much like the roller coaster example where the ball is the front carriage and the subsequent parts of the tail are the carriages that follow. My first attempt resulted in a stiff tail, which is the opposite of the desired fluid appearance.

Tailed ball animation in spline exercise

Redoing blocking

To achieve fluidity in the movement of the tail and eliminate stiffness, I began to redo the blocking stage, in reference to the feedback given. I drew the table that depicted the breakdown of 1 jump into 10 keyframes, to better navigate the following movement of the tail. I used that as the reference point, to check against while animating.

This is a screenshot of the work-in-progress during the blocking stage. The motion trail in the viewport currently has a triangular shape, which is typical for this stage. Moving forward to the spline animation phase, my role will be to refine the pathways to better approximate organic movement by reshaping them into parabolas. To achieve this, I will add more keyframes, providing Maya with additional data to create smoother parabolic interpolations. This approach addresses the default linear interpolation caused by the limited coordinate space data provided during the blocking stage.

Delivering spline animation

Delivering an animation in spline requires working within the graph editor and the viewport to adjust the interpolation curves, ensuring they approximate organic movement while checking the outcome for both appearance and feel.

The automated spline interpolation function facilitates the transition from linear tangents to spline curves. However, due to the limited sample data provided, this often results in visual artifacts. Therefore, manual corrections are necessary to refine the animation.

Spline animation submission on SyncSketch: Tailed ball spline -> fox_jumps_spline_1

Pendulum critique & Planning for the tailed ball exercise

What is Anticipation?

Anticipation is an action that provides visual clues about the main action that is about to occur, often building up internal force leading to the main event.

Anticipation visually conveys the amount of strength and force that goes into a movement. The use of squash and stretch not only enhances the expression of movement but also makes it more convincing to the viewer.

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Framework: Anticipation > Action > Reaction

This principle, as described by Bill Tytla, references Newton’s laws of motion.

1. Anticipation: Prepares the audience for the action by showing the buildup of strength or force. For example, the ball stretches and squashes in anticipation of a bounce.
2. Action: The main event, such as the ball bouncing.
3. Reaction: The follow-through movement, like the tail following the ball’s motion.
   
   (Reference: Rollercoaster principle)

Tail movement

The tail follows the same curve as the front part of the movement (e.g., a bouncing ball).

The natural pose for the tail is often an S-shape, which reflects the dynamics of motion.

Tailed ball animation exercise

Key guidelines:

• Begin with the ball animation.
• Once the ball’s motion is finalized, move to animating the tail.
• Deliver the animation in blocking mode, not in spline.
  
  

What is blocking?

Blocking is the foundation of the animation process. It involves setting the main keys, breakdowns, and using stepped tangents to sketch the motion.

• Purpose:
  Blocking allows you to test and refine your idea quickly without worrying about transitions or splines. It’s a time-efficient way to sketch the animation’s key movements.
• Delivery Details:
  Use stepped tangents (flat or linear tangents) that create a strobe-light effect. This is similar to a Boolean system—either “on” or “off.”
  
  

Breakdowns: Adding Life to Motion

Breakdowns are essential to filling the space between keyframes. They define how the motion transitions, playing a crucial role in creating the illusion of life.

• Core Idea:
  It’s all about time and space—integrating principles like stretch and squash to make the motion believable and dynamic.
  
  

The Four Stages of Animation:

1. Planning: Laying out your ideas and structure.
2. Blocking: Establishing the foundation with keys, breakdowns, and stepped tangents.
3. Splining: Refining the transitions and smoothing out the motion.
4. Polishing: Adding the final touches to perfect the animation.

What is ghosting?

Ghosting mode can be switched on for the controllers or object, to visualise tracking of the movement.

Planning for an assignment

To create an iconograph, I took screenshots of George’s demo in class, which showed the simple up-and-down motion of the ball with the tail. I used these as the guide, while working on delivering of my animation, so I could always go back to it an reference the key frames, and try to approximate my blocking against George’s.

I opted for a simple animation while applying the theory I’ve learned so far. My animation consists of a small jump, which serves as the anticipation for the bigger jump. This is followed by three smaller jumps, indicating that the initial jump was high in energy. To balance the energy accumulated from the jump, the ball requires several smaller jumps to come to a stop.

The sequence follows the pattern of anticipation > action > reaction:

• Anticipation: Preparing for the big jump.
• Action: The big jump itself.
• Reaction: The consecutive smaller jumps that help balance the accumulated energy.

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Pendulum Feedback

My submission on SyncSketch: Pendulum -> Pendulum

The pendulum movement is effective, but the achieved velocity is not proportionate or justified relative to the velocity of the base moving from point A to point B before it stops. To address this, the number of frames allocated for the base movement should be reduced to around 23 frames to create a shorter, more rapid motion. (Refer to the graph editor highlighted in the red box.)

I have grasped the concept of C and S shapes well, but I now need to ensure they are accurately approximated so that these shapes do not appear exaggerated. (See the comparison above: an over-the-top S versus a correctly approximated S below.)

Consistency is key when mapping the movement. The S and C shapes should be spaced evenly around a middle line, which could be drawn as a reference through the anchor point of the pendulum at its base.

When the pendulum comes to a stop, the movement must account for both the middle section and the outer part of the pendulum (corresponding to the rotation of the respective joints). The final part to stop should always be the outermost section of the pendulum.

Bouncing ball critique & Pendulum exercise

12 Principles of Animation

1. Arcs:
   • Organic life moves in arcs, simulating curvature in motion, it’s characterised by the increase and decrease in the acceleration that is not constant.
   • Robotic and artificial ways, on the other hand, move linearly as per constant acceleration.
     
2. Exaggeration:
   • Enhances dramatic effect and emphasizes important moments, so it’s clear to an audience what’s happening. Animation is about exaggeration.
     
3. Timing and Motion:
   • Defines the pace and the rhythm of movement, and justifies the simulation that approximates real movement.
     
4. Anticipation:
   • Prepares the audience for an action by providing a visual clue about what is about to happen. It gets pulled back before it goes forward etc.
     
5. Follow-Through and Overlapping Action:
   • the primary action comes with secondary actions that follow to enhance the fluidity of the organic movement.
     
6. Staging:
   • Understanding where the subject that is being animated is supposed to be situated is more related to the viewer feedback, in the way that the viewer has a sense of what’s going on, thus the animator’s role is to clearly convey that action that is taking place.
     
7. Straight-Ahead vs. Pose-to-Pose Action:
   • Straight Ahead: Suited for tackling heavily organic movements, emphasizing the physicality of motion.
   • Pose-to-Pose: Structured and thought through as per break down, useful for complex animations.
   • Layering: Combining both approaches for efficiency and optimized approach.
     
8. Slow In and Slow Out:
   • Achieved using Graph Editor curves:
     • Linear Curve: Constant motion.
     • Smooth Gradual Curve: Gradual acceleration or deceleration.
     • Sharp Steep Curve: Quick, abrupt motion.
       
9. Secondary Action:
   • It follows the primary action and adds depth and richness to the movement, enhancing the fluidity of the organic movement.
     
10. Appeal:
    • Adds an “extra flavour” to the animation, often during the polishing stage.
      
11. Squash and Stretch:
    • Reflects the flexibility and mass of the object. (Covered in the detailed during the 1st week)
      
12. Solid Drawing:
    • A principle rooted in 2D animation, ensuring that forms remain consistent in volume and appearance, and reliable in motion.
      
      

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Pendulum motion: Understanding follow-through and overlapping action

What is Follow-Through?

Follow-through refers to the movement that continues after the primary action has taken place. It describes secondary actions that are a natural result of the primary motion, enhancing the realism and fluidity of the animation. This principle ensures that movements feel organic and not abruptly mechanical.

Successive Breaking of Joints

A key technique in follow-through is the successive breaking of joints, where the motion flows like a chain reaction. Each joint moves with a slight delay compared to the previous one, creating a cascading effect. This slight offset prevents the animation from looking rigid, introducing a natural and dynamic quality to the movement

Drag aka Wave Principle

Drag, or the wave principle is essential for achieving overlap in motion. It involves a lead-and-follow dynamic, where the leading part of an object drives the movement, and the following parts react to it. This interaction highlights the relationship between primary and secondary actions, adding depth and complexity to the animation.

Pendulum Motion

A classic example of overlapping and follow-through action is pendulum motion. Here, the gravitational energy transitions into kinetic energy, creating smooth arcs and diminishing momentum over time. The pendulum showcases how overlapping motion can add weight, rhythm, and natural flow to animated objects, making them feel grounded in physical principles.

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Everything is a bouncing ball

Tutorial source:

Everything is a Bouncing Ball

A video demonstration reveals that the complex movement of a character in animation can be broken down into separate areas, each of which can be depicted as a bouncing ball moving independently. Each joint or limb of the character follows its own unique path, much like an individual bouncing ball, yet when combined with the motion of the rest of the body, they come together to define the cohesive and dynamic movement of the character. This approach highlights how the interplay of these individual elements contributes to the overall flow and believability of the animated motion.

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Pendulum exercise

1. Quick and Dirty Method in Maya

Following the class example, I attempted the “quick and dirty” method in Maya. However, I encountered difficulties when trying to develop the pendulum’s movement after its base stops. At this point, the kinetic energy transfers through the system, creating the characteristic “C” and “S” shapes.

2. Understanding the Movement Logic

Tutorial source:

How To Animate a TAIL – Animation Exercise

To better understand the logic behind the movement, I started by sketching the motion of grass as demonstrated in the tutorial.

Observations:

• The grass tail begins its motion in an initial C-like shape.
• As it moves, the bottom half of the tail shifts in the opposite direction to the upper half, transforming the C-shape into an S-shape.
• The S-shape represents the point where the energy peaks, causing the tail to snap back into an inverted C-shape.
• This cycle repeats, following a similar pattern of movement logic.

3. Analysing Pendulum Motion

Video source:
https://vimeo.com/111841120

To analyse the pendulum motion, I used George’s pendulum animation to closely examine for all the shapes discussed in the point above.

Steps taken:

1. I selected a specific chunk of the video and extended its duration to slow it down significantly.
2. This allowed me to view the motion in slow motion and clearly identify the pendulum’s path, including all the “C” and “S” shapes.
   

Extremes and keyframes

According to Animation Survival Kit, the positions where the pendulum reaches its furthest points are called extremes, which is intuitive. As a rule of thumb, extremes are not circled in animation planning sketches, but keyframes are.

Keyframes, based on the 1940s animation method, are the key drawings circled in the sketches used to plan an animation. Between these keyframes are the intermediate drawings, often referred to as in-betweens or phasing frames.

The hierarchy of animation planning follows this structure:
KEYS → EXTREMES → BREAKDOWNS → IN-BETWEENS

For example, moving from frame A to frame B without any in-between frames would create a “teleportation” effect—an unnaturally quick movement with no sense of transition. To address this, a breakdown key is introduced to highlight the journey between frames. The in-between frames are critical as they define the character of the movement. By adding in-between frames, the motion can be slowed down or made more fluid. Concepts like ease-in and ease-out rely on adding frames strategically to emphasize gradual acceleration or deceleration.

• Keyframes define what happens and where it happens on the screen, providing staging information (e.g., if a character moves forward, the keyframes indicate the start and end positions).
• In-betweens define how the action happens, adding nuance to the nature of the movement.

In 3D animation, software handles interpolation between frames automatically. However, the animator’s role remains essential for keying the major positions during the blocking stage.

Best Approach to Animation Planning

A hybrid method known as layered method (discussed in detailed in week1), combining pose-to-pose and straight-ahead techniques, is the most effective approach. This ensures the animation is both logical and structured (pose-to-pose) while maintaining a fluid and natural quality (straight-ahead).

Steps for Planning Animation:

1. Define the main keys for the animation.
2. Add the extremes.
3. Incorporate breakdowns and in-betweens.
4. Apply the straight-ahead approach to specific parts of the character.
   • For example, in the flying squirrel animation from week 3, the ball and the tail would be treated as separate components.

The keyframes are the most critical as they define the foundation of the animation.

The pendulum loses momentum as it swings, resulting in asymmetrical movement. Each successive endpoint of the swing decreases in height (as seen in the cartographic view/left plane). These “endpoints of the movement” are numbered in the image below, starting with 1.

Bouncing ball feedback

Submission on syncsketch:
Ball that bounces 🙂 -> bouncing ball

• ” Animation requires for ball to bounce 1 or 2 times”.
• “Please try to curve out motion trail and reduce rotations since some parts are spinning to much”.
  
  
  
  
  

Pendulum exercise

Planning

Delivering

As the base of the pendulum moves, the end of the pendulum is getting dragged alongside. This dragging gets transcend into kinematic energy, so when the base comes to stop the pendulum swings until the complete loss of the energy. The most important when delivering an animation is that, the end of pendulum, remains in the same position, for the first few keyframes, to achieve the notion of dragging.

The base comes to stop, energy is being transcend, resulting in a swing into the opposite direction.

The graph describes rotation X of the pendulum base, that decreases over the time, as the pendulum swing backwards and forwards, until complete lose of energy (flat line at the end).

Successive breaking of the following joints, as depicted on the screenshot above, as the pendulum take a awkward shape that resembles S shape, as it’s swing from one side to the opposite one, marking both extremes, while taking a shape of reversed letter C and regular C, respectively.

Offsetting as an easy and quick way to get fast results. For the consecutive joints of the pendulum the keys are applied in that same values are applied but offset in the time, meaning moved across the timeline by the certain number of keyframes for each of the following joints, with the highest offset applied for the end of the pendulum, as this comes to the end as the last. the screenshot shows the graph editor, where rotation x is shown for the following joints.