URL: https://youtu.be/y6q7WQEnTi8
We attempted to animate a ball bouncing from one side of a blank plane to the other, in order to grasp a feel of the animation tools and processes present in Maya, which we will be utilising for the creation of our final character animations. Using Maya to animate the bouncing ball was beneficial, as I am partially familiar with the software and its user interface, which resulted in learning more of the ins and outs of the software and in turn a more comfortable and less daunting creation process.
Through utilising the animation technique ‘squash and stretch’, the movement of the ball bouncing from one area to the next looks more interesting, fluid and natural, as it imitates rapid object movement perceived by the human eye. If I had made the ball stay as a stagnant perfect sphere throughout the duration of the animation, the ball would have looked like it had no weight or depth to it, which breaks the immersion and believability of it being a real bouncing ball. Squash and stretch could be applied to my character’s animations, however, I will have to consider to what degree I should push the use of this in correlation to the design and intent of my character and their story background.
I’m quite happy with the way my bouncing ball animation turned out. I wanted to portray the ball as being rather heavy, but still highly bounceable, and I believed I achieved this. However, I do think something that may have improved the animation is if I had included an extended period of time at the end of each cycle for the ball to slow down, both bounce and speed-wise, and let it roll and settle, in order to make it appear more realistic, rather than immediately ending after the last bounce.
When accomplishing this task I thought about the potential of incorporating squash and stretch into the final animations of my character Val. I’m conflicted on what degree of squash and stretch would be a good fit, as on one hand I think it’d fit the simplistic stylisation of my character by pushing the cartoony feel. But, on the other hand, my character is supposed to be rigid, dense and indestructible, therefore it’d make sense that their animations reflected this aspect of the character, and too much/any amount of squash and stretch may not fit this aspect of the character. It could be difficult trying to find the correct balance, so some experimentation during the animation process may be required.