Bouncing Ball with Archs

      Bonjour! Comment ça va? Moi bien! How are all of you? School is finally starting up for real, this has been my first full week back from winter break. We've had some "crazy weather" as well as many professional days, so i'm enjoying the time off. But that also means I can't work on my animation, have no fear; I've come back with another project to share. This is another bouncing ball, but this time it's with ...*drumroll please*  ... archs. Because every non-man made thing  in nature moves in arcs, or at least not in straight line. So without further ado, lets get right into the projecttttt. 


The Project


      For this project we had to make a ball bouncing come bouncing into view as if it was being thrown by something or someone. First we had to make the sky with a gradient, then of course the ground. I again choose a bright spring green and a midday blue, I think the colors look rather all with each other and it reminds me of great spring time weather. I did not change what side the sun was one but this time its a  bit more circle looking instead of drawn in the corner. Then we made a path for the ball to follow, so the arches path. Next we had to create the ball with a face on it, I wanted to do a blue ball so I was thinking of blue cartoon characters, I came up with Sonic the Hedgehog, but I didn't have his blue hair? It would've been to difficult and I was being lazy as well, oops. Anyways, we did squash and stretch and also learned easing in and easing out. When the ball goes down you squeeze it in and stretch it out as well as spreading the frames further apart to create speed, for the bounce up you squeeze it back down and make the frames closer together to show the effect gravity's work. After the ball was done bouncing you have to create a surprise ending, my ball his eaten by a hole and is never seen again. Pretty great if I do say so myself. To create a finished look you want to tween the frames so it will fade in and out nicely, make sure the background (Grass and Sky) is present either wise it will make the transition sloppy. Also make sure you pause on the title page, the first frame of the actual animation, the punchline, and the end screen. This will give people time read the title and take in the screen as well as try and add humor. 

What Did I Learn


       I learned that nature is always moving and nothing is going to be in a straight line, also that gravity exists in animation, and that exaggeration always looks better. I know to make sure everything is in different layers so it can actually animate as well as not mess you up. I learned how to better use easing in and out to change up the speed and make Sonic look like he's going faster on the drops and that he's losing speed on the bounces. I also learned that I need to make sure everything is still congruent so all the holes line up and the frames are in the correct order so it doesn't flash or jump back. 

How It Went


       I love animation, as I have said before and I think it went well. It kinda took me a while to make the project, but that could've been the lack of school we've actually had since returning from break. I messed up a few times while creating Sonic so I had to start him over, I keep forgetting to change layers when I add stuff, and my squash and stretch could be better. Everything is better exaggerated in animation and I feel like I could've exaggerated so much more. But Over all I think it went pretty well and I'm happy with how it turned out. 

A Bientôt! See you later my friends!
Sophie the First.

Bouncing Ball Animation

 Hello fellow bloggers, tis I, Sophie the first again. How are you all? Winter break was fantastic for me and now I'm back at school and this quarter I'm in animation. We are learning the ropes and it all beginners stuff, but I love it! So without further ado here we go:

   The Steps 

    The frist this you want to do when creating an animation is make a background. I choose to do midday, with the sun high in the sky. Then you choose your foreground and background colors. After click the gradient tool to create shading, this tool will help it look more realistic and 3-D. I also added in  couple more colors to the sky, like yellow for the sun. All you do to add it to the gradient is click a place in the shading bar, choose your color, and move it were ever you want. Next we made the grass or the ground, were the ball will bounce. I choose to do bright green grass, like springtime color. To make sure your grass doesn't come out of its respected rectangle you have to command click on the layer and that will only select the place you want your grass. Then just add in more colors and voila, you have shaded grass/ground. After that I created the ball. First choose the rectangle tool and change it to the ellipse tool and hold shift to make it a perfect circle. Then you just make more and more layers, slowly moving the ball down, spreading it further apart, and squeezing it in. This will give it the effect that its gaining speed and moving down. Make sure you always label layers and lock them when your done, this will preventing anything from happening.

                                                        

          What Did I learn

       During the project I learned how to better use photoshop for animation and not just touching up pictures. I learned that animation is not as easy as I orginally thought, although I still love it! There are always things you can add to layers to make it look better and more real. I learned that layers and spacing are key points in making animation look good, the more layers you have and the closer your animation is together will determine the speed. I learned a couple techniques like: squash and stretch, this means that as your object is moving it will stretch more to make it seem like its moving faster and then you squash it when it makes impact. In animation everything looks better exaggerated. We also learned easing in and easing out. When an object is easing in, you start with the frames closer together then spreed them apart as they gain speed, its the same with easing out. You start with the frames far apart but then make them closer as they lose speed.

How Did It Go

      I think that this project went smoothly and I had a lot of fun. This was my first animation and I loved it, no matter the hard work it took. I have learned a lot and am so ready for our next project. I wish I didn't have so many colors because as you can tell from down below, my projects looks a little grainy. I've learned how real animators feel, although this is probably little compared to what they do, but I think I'll get the hang of it soon. The hard part was remebering all the steps it takes, I have never used a Mac before e-COMM so all this stuff is new to me and is sightly diffcult to remeber but its all worth it because I always love the finished project.

  Till next time,
Sophie the First.