Animation Fundamentals: Exercises

 MODULE GCD61104: Animation Fundamentals Exercises

Tristan Vaughan Sleep - 0365120

Animation Fundamentals / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media

Exercises I & II: Animation Introductions - Bouncing Ball + Squash & Stretch + Secondary Animation

---

MODULE INSTRUCTIONS:

“SEPT 2024 - JAN 2025: GCD 61104 / ANIM. FUNDAMENTALS MODULE INFORMATION BOOKLET”

Exercises I & II: Animation Introductions - Bouncing Ball + Squash & Stretch + Secondary Animation

Exercise I - Bouncing ball + Squash & Stretch: Students of the cohort are expected to develop their skill in Digital Animation throughout the module using specific programs such as Adobe Animate and/or Illustrator. To introduce Students to digital animation, the beginning exercise expects students to animate a sports ball bouncing horizontally along the screen. This is to showcase the importance of timing as well as spacing which are used together to suggest speed and/or momentum of an object. Further alterations can be made to the shape of the ball to suggest squash & stretch, another animation process which highlights the kinetic energy of an object.

Exercise II - Bouncing Ball + Secondary Animation: Students of the cohort are expected to build upon their previous work by adding additional features to the bouncing ball which indicates an understanding of Animation Fundamentals. The First requirement is the addition of Squash and Stretch animation should it not have been added in the previous instance. The second Requirement is for the students to hand-animate a ‘tail’ which is attached to the end of the ball and is added to show ‘secondary animation’ or motion a follow through motion of an attached component.

---

PARTICIPATED LECTURES:

WEEK I - III: Exercise I - Bouncing Ball + Squash and Stretch

Basics: The first objective outlined by the lecturer for this module is a basic exercise where students are expected to animate a bouncing ball along a set path across the screen. While nothing too difficult in description, this objective is meant more as an introduction to the basics of Animation and getting students familiar with the new software which they will need to use: ‘Adobe Animate.’ Furthermore, this objective is also used to introduce the students to the principles of animation which dictates accepted motion in digital animation. 

Spacing & Timing: Before students would be able to begin animating the ball within Adobe Animate, we were recommended to check out the novel, ‘The Animator's Survival Kit’ written by Richard Williams which covers the core principles of both traditional and digital animation. It is in the novel that the students would learn about some of the most important principles of animation which are responsible for making sequenced images look like they are in motion: ‘Spacing & Timing.’ In a basic sense, these two principles work together to create a sense of motion which can be altered for different speeds. In an example, an animator can suggest that an object has a high speed by capturing frames where the object is far apart and is spread across a small amount of frames. The opposite can suggest slow movement with plentiful frames being used to capture the small movements of the object.

For this exercise, these principles become important to consider as it is what will suggest the motion of the ball is ‘realistic’ and understandable by the audience. Before animating the ball bouncing along a horizontal plane, I first began exploring the timing of the ball bouncing up and down to get a good sense of timing and rough spacing. Taking examples from a real bouncing ball, I could see that the spacing of the ball halves its bounce height with each consecutive bounce. The first bounce may be a metre high while the second one should only reach about ½ a metre. Furthermore, the ball becomes clearer to see during the time it hits the ground or at the apex of its jump and less visible during its ascent or descent. This suggests where more frames or less frames are needed to mimic real movement and also highlights the importance of timing. The process of altering the amount of frames per distance is called ‘speed ramping’ and suggests that the object is at its greatest speed.

With the completion of the vertical motion, it then became important to consider the horizontal movement of the ball. This can be more easily achieved upon understanding the spacing as all I needed to do was to match the frames and their height to a predetermined bounce arch. To draw each arch, I was able to map them using the max. Height and min. Height and increasing the distance between each bounce.

Squash & Stretch: The final element which is optional in this first exercise is ‘Squash & Stretch’ which is the process of malforming the shape of an object to imply greater speed or elasticity of an object. An important thing to consider when doing ‘squash and stretch’ is conserving the ‘volume’ of the object: should you reduce its height, it should have its width increased. In animation, Squash & stretch is used in extreme moments of motion such as when something reaches terminal velocity or the apex of a jump. For the ball, Squash and stretch was used at the height of the jump and when it collided with the floor.

>

“Exercise I Animation of the bouncing ball animation”

WEEK II - IV: Exercise II - Bouncing Ball + Secondary Animation

Basics: Continuing from the previous Exercise, students are expected to further their understanding of digital animation by adding additional elements to the previous exercises work. For the second activity, students are expected to add ‘squash and stretch’ elements to their animation if the students have not done so already as well as a ‘secondary animation’ element to the scene in the form of a tail attached to the end of the ball.

Squash & Stretch Continued: As mentioned in the previous section, Squash and Stretch animation has now become a requirement for this second exercise and has been explored in the previous section. Due to this eagerness, I was able to discuss my designs with the lecturer to better refine my squash and stretch designs to better fit the motion. The first observation argued by my lecturer is the placement of some of the squash and stretch; suggesting that they can be further separated as the speed ramps up to make the motion appear a lot quicker. Another important thing to consider about squash and stretch is that its appearance can be used to make larger gaps between frames look more reasonable in motion. However it is also important to consider adding some spacing between squash and stretch to play better into its design.

Secondary Animation - Tail Animation: The main requirement of this exercise is for students to add a secondary animation element in the form of a tail which is expected to be attached on the end of the ball. This is another principle of animation which details the different stages of the animation and how additional elements can be added to show more exaggerated motion. In General, Secondary animation refers to a second series of motion which is added to an object to support or emphasize the main action, appearing in most cases to be elements such as loose clothing or fabrics, hair, fire/gas trails, etc. What is more unique about these types of animation is that they are often designed after the key frames have been designed for the main object, being added on top to show exaggeration. 

In the case of this exercise, the tail is added to show a simple, single point connection and how the ball can be exaggerated by a trailing object. In the video, I showed how the motion still continues after the ball moves as it runs down the tail which is why the tail is continuing past the ball despite its change in direction.

“Exercise II Animation of the bouncing ball + tail animation”