3D Animation Test - The Walk

For this exercise, I created a walk for a rigged model. I had practiced creating a walk in Maya back in January, but I found it confusing working around the controls and I kept getting confused with which body parts I had keyframed, which made it a much more grueling process. Additionally, I had trouble grasping the concept of how the feet moved, and ended up creating a moonwalk during pretty much every step, which then had to be corrected. Despite this, I am quite happy with how this turned out and this exercise gave me a better understanding of how rigged models work.

Storyboard - Speed And Movement

The purpose of this storyboard was to experiment with speed and movement. The brief was that any two characters should meet while approaching at different speeds, so I created a storyline of two girls, one a runner and one playing on their phone, bumping into each other one day.

I also included some concept art when coming up with character designs for Jenna and Liu.

2D Animation Test - Jumping Box Man

For this exercise, I created a jumping figure using basic shapes - a circle and a box. I actually found this more challenging than using an ordinary human shape, surprisingly. I had attempted a jumping figure in early March and while I have improved greatly since then, I found it difficult creating the illusion of a box man jumping. However, I decided to overcome my initial confusion by giving more of a build up - the box man stretches out like a sprinter getting into their start position, and then that gave the momentum my figure needed for a successful jump.

Stop Motion Animation Test - Balloons And Bowling Balls

This next stop motion exercise was all about weight and how movement is affected by it. The task was to create the illusion of a balloon and a bowling ball falling to the ground. The balloon was created by watching reference of a balloon falling. It does small arcs in the air as it descends slowly, twirling in the wind, until it hits the floor - it then bounces quickly upwards and changes direction entirely as its momentum changes. In order to create this effect, I had the frame move sharply, to make it look as though it was quickly hitting the ground. I am proud of this test but wish I could have made my pencil markings more obvious, as they were difficult to see and therefore harder to follow exactly.

For the second test, I created the illusion of a bowling ball hitting the ground. Since bowling balls are heavy, they hardly bounce, so I incorporated this by having it drop from a greater height to see how it would react. There was a small bounce, but I feel that it could have been smaller to further create the illusion of it being a heavy ball.

3D Animation Test - Bouncing Ball With Squash And Stretch

For this test I had to animate a ball bouncing off multiple surfaces, and incorporate the principle of squash and stretch. I used motion paths to create the movement and had great difficulty at first, as Maya isn't a program I'm very strong in using currently. My first test looked more like the ball was made of pudding or jelly.
I later went back and corrected this when I had a better understanding of squash and stretch and motion trails, giving a much nicer finish.

2D Animation Test - Bouncing Ball in 3D Room

This test was working in Tv Paint to create the effect of a ball bouncing across surfaces in a box room to create a 3D effect. It was more difficult to recreate this as I tried to create the animation without the use of squash and stretch.

Stop Motion Animation Test - Pendulums

For this exercise I practiced recreating the pattern of a pendulum in stop motion using coins. These tests were created in DragonFrame. The first test was a standard pendulum.

The second test was a pendulum in the style of a grandfather clock, meaning I had to study how grandfather clock pendulums move in time to the ticking of the clock.