WEEK 8 SUMMARY

This week was the final week of unit BA1a. Finished Character Design and Character Research.

CHARACTER DESIGN
For character design, this final week was simultaneously easy to get through, and very difficult to get through. I did manage to get everything done, and the easy part about that is that I already had the bulk of the work done, this week was just finishing it. The difficult part of it was the overwhelming sense of “what if it’s wrong” that I had a couple of times. I realise in past blog entries I mention the development of not being afraid of failure, but this seemed too big to not be intimidated of at times. But I did manage to get there in the end, thank goodness. The walk cycle had arms added, and the head was fixed too. Turnaround finished up with some slight adjustments to keep consistency, and then that was it. I’m glad I kept on top of it the way I did, making sure to keep an appropriate balance between work and personal time. Definitely going to apply that to my next projects. Nothing really to improve on this week, since I’m at the end of everything and trying to apply what I’d previously said I’d improve on. 

CHARACTER RESEARCH
And the essay is done! I sent off my first draft to our lecturer for feedback, got some back, and managed to fix it up relatively quickly! This helped me in a HUGE way; since I was told that once the changes were made I needn’t send it back, I knew that I could rest easy (relatively speaking) after the recommended changes were amended. I’m ultimately glad that I did the essay in the end; those types of research skills will (probably) come in handy in the future. It also helped me with getting to know characters in a deeper way. Learning every little thing matters is something I really respect, and want to be able to put into my own projects and characters in future. I think the only thing I’d change about the process of making this is go QUICKER. 8 weeks was a good amount of time, but for a few of those weeks, the essay felt more like an afterthought or something that wasn’t AS important, thus taking longer. I want to be able to have essays up front next time, alongside my actual animation tasks. 

FINAL THOUGHTS / SUMMARY OF BA1a
Overall, I feel this unit went VERY well! I feel proud of everything I've made, and all the knowledge I've gained is all vital and important not just for future projects, but for my animation career in general. Learning all the principles, different exercises and character fundamentals in terms of both visual design and as functional characters was all so interesting and honestly enjoyable! I can't wait for the next project!

WEEK 7 SUMMARY

WEEK START - 5th of November

WEEK END - 12th of November

This week was mainly focused around TVPaint animations for our characters, and finetuning details of the essay.

MONDAY

Monday was when we started the animated turnaround of our chosen character. There were a few ways to go about it, including using the previously drawn turnaround. I decided to go from scratch for the turnaround itself, but using my sketchbook and digitally converted cast model as my references.

For more on this session, see this post.

WEDNESDAY

There was a group session held to catch up with our lecturer on our essays, seeing how we're getting on and as an opportunity to ask questions. This was quite helpful for me; while I had my plan and ideas in place, saying them out loud to the person most knowledgeable about what we're meant to be doing helped to validate everything. I was a lot more confident in what I was doing from that point onwards, and knew I was on the right track.

I'm going to email her my draft as soon as it's 100% complete, and hopefully get some feedback to improve it and call it "finished".

THURSDAY
Thursday was when people moved onto the walk cycle for their character, also done in TVPaint. I went straight ahead with trial and error methodologies, trying out a couple of ways to achieve the feel I wanted. The walk had to show the weight of the character, and it was quite tricky to do so. Eventually, after some guidance from lecturers and tutors, I managed to get a walk cycle I was happy with!

For more on this session, see this post.



SUMMARY
In short, this week was a lot more difficult than the others I've had so far. The TVPaint turnaround and walkcycles were more fidgety and tricky to work with than I originally thought they'd be. I put some of that onto TVPaint, but mostly inexperience with it was my downfall here. I've been so used to Adobe Animate and it's more forgiving nature, but TVPaint is more for the people who make more art-heavy animations, as opposed to my preferred cartoony, fun styles. I'm probably just going to have to learn to get used to it over time. Either that or I can try and work in Animate in future? We'll see.

The essay is starting to reach the end, and this week put my confidence and drive for it up by a significant amount. I have my sources gathered up and put into a separate bibliography (unalphabetised and unlinked to the essay at this point; will append when essay is 100% ready to go). I might try and find a few more sources though, just to make sure everything I'm trying to say is right and can't be contradicted by anything. I'm using the basic skeleton of my plan from this post, but maybe with a few more sources thrown in? All I know is, this time next week the essay will be done.

WEEK 6 SUMMARY

WEEK START - 29th of October

WEEK END - 4th of November

This week was focused on our casts that we designed, and translating them from pencil & paper to the digital space. We also had a lecture on Harvard Referencing (didn't get a post of it's own, but I'll sum it up here.)

MONDAY

On Monday, we made a sheet consisting of four panels relating to our cast:

• CAST LINEUP
• CHARACTER MODEL SHEET
• CHARACTER DESIGN SHEET
• CHARACTER WALK CYCLE

For more on this session, see this post.

TUESDAY

In place of a regular lecture, we were looking at how to correctly utilise Harvard Referencing for our character essay. In this session, we learnt how to properly cite and reference the following formats:

• Books
• E-Books
• Films
• Commentaries
• Reissued Films
• Webpages
• YouTube Videos
• Newspaper Articles

Aside from those, we also learnt the proper rules and regulations when it comes to quoting & paraphrasing. There was a talk on plagiarism, and how to avoid doing it, by accident or not. Punctuation, common knowledge and different source types (primary & secondary) were also brought up.

THURSDAY

This session was the start of our Photoshop conversion of the physical sketches. For Photoshop, we had to remake:

• CAST MODEL SHEET
• CHARACTER MODEL SHEET
• CHARACTER DESIGN SHEET

For the full writeup of this session, see this post.

SUMMARY

In general, I feel this week went very well! I was glad to be entering the digital art scene for my work, since that's the medium I generally feel most confident drawing in. Nothing really acted up or went wrong, but I definitely areas where I changed things as I went along, both for necessity's sake and because my mind changed on certain design choices. I would only change things that I could do with a little more time, and only if I wanted to, not because I had to. Adding shading to the design sheet, and colour to the entire turnaround would've been preferential, but ultimately it didn't need to be there. Still, I would've liked it.

The lecture on Harvard referencing was very helpful, since most of my sources for The LEGO Movie I could find weren't in books, the only source type we'd been over before. Learning how to properly cite and reference movies, YouTube videos, websites, etc, will all essential to correctly documenting my sources for my essay. The essay is really getting there, I think I have a plan set out at this point. I just need to find relevant and usable sources / evidence to back up each point and I'll be set.

WEEK 5 SUMMARY

WEEK START - 22nd of October

WEEK END - 28th of October

Week 5 was the beginning of our new project on Character Design, and also included a talk on the uncanny.

MONDAY
On Monday, we were introduced to our character design unit, lasting from this week to the end of week 8. We learnt the fundamentals on Monday, using a template to create various unique characters out of abstracted shapes and forms. To see full coverage on this session, see this post. 

TUESDAY
Tuesday was our character research talk on the uncanny, and the uncanny valley. Uncanny, in a nutshell, is the look of something that seems slightly off, but throws the entire sense of comfortability around it. Common examples are motion capture films (e.g. The Polar Express) and video games that opt for more realistic graphics (e.g. Mass Effect Andromeda). For my full post on the uncanny, see this post.

THURSDAY
Thursday was more character design workshops, this time working on how to design a cast from scratch. This involved taking different materials, symbols, etc, and making silhouettes out of them. We added details and little features to give the silhouettes more character. Eventually, we created a full cast in groups of 4 - 5, making one character each for a fictional show, movie or game. For my full post on cast designing, see this post.

SUMMARY
Overall, I'm happy with how this week has gone! The introduction to character design was a lot more interesting and engaging than I originally thought it'd be. Being able to learn how to make characters with shapes, colours and more variables to consider more carefully is definitely going to be beneficial going forward. I think the sessions will also help me to break out of my style more, but it'll take some forcing from myself to move away from my comfort zone. 
The lecture on the uncanny was an interesting one for sure, but considering it in terms of my essay is somewhat tricky. Emmet has surpassed the uncanny valley, managing to reach the point where people question if he's an actual LEGO minifigure or really convincing CGI (it's the latter). I think it'd be important to bring up Emmet's realistic looks in the essay, but maybe not with the perspective of the uncanny and audience confusion; probably more with how the realistic look serves as representation of the LEGO brand accurately.

WEEK 4 SUMMARY

This week concluded the dynamics research sub-unit, with a final practice task and an introduction to our final dynamics task, which we submit with the rest of the unit's work.

ANTICIPATION (JUMP)

I did two animations for this task: an original jump, and then a more refined one.

"Starting off, I knew that I'd need to make multiple layers for my guide. The neutral start / end positions and the anticipation / follow throughs would be standing on the exact same piece of ground, with overlap in the positions if done on one sheet. So I made 3 different guide layers; one for extremes, one for anticipation / follow through, and one for inbetweens. This was a big help, although did prove a little tricky when trying to inbetween, because I was trying to look through my current sheet at two sheets underneath, instead of the usual one.

I linetested my first attempt, resulting in this.

While it gives off a convincing enough effect, I realised that the anticipation at the beginning didn't signpost the movement coming up well enough. I needed BIGGER movements.

So, I went back to the drawing board (literally), and made more inbetweens at the beginning to give a bigger movement. The arms go up further to a bigger extreme, and thus, give off a better signal.

The second jump feels a lot more natural, with the more obvious anticipation and smoother jump in general.

I think if I was to do this jump again, I would try and give it a little bit more personality to the jump with more unique actions for the anticipation and recoil, instead of generic poses.

Overall, I'm fairly happy with this task. I did hit a bump along the way, but instead of letting it get to me and make the work seem lesser, I took it and improved upon it. The talk on failure last week made me feel a lot differently towards work going wrong, especially comparing this task to when my pendulum swing originally went wrong." - original thoughts from this post.

Looking back at the end of the week, I'm definitely more happy with it than I was originally. While it was still fresh in my mind, I was deliberately looking too hard, being too nitpicky. But taking a step back after a while helped to see how the animation actually turned out; it's fine, and while a few things could be tweaked and altered, I'm satisfied at this point with it.

FINAL DYNAMICS TASK

For this task, I'm still going with the idea of the guy throwing his head towards a basketball hoop and ultimately missing. I've found a good piece of live action reference for the ball hitting the wall, made by professors at San Diego State University. Their tennis ball in slow motion shows the exact type of squash and stretch I want from my cartoon head when it hits the wall. I'll make individual blog posts for tests, timings and final productions.

(credit: Prof. Matt Anderson of SDSU)

ANTHROPOMORPHISM
Anthropomorphism was the topic of our character essay lecture. While this didn't apply all too much to my chosen character (Emmet, The LEGO Movie), it was an interesting lecture nonetheless. For all my thoughts and notes on this lecture, see this post.

FINAL THOUGHTS
This week went well overall. The dynamic exercise brief definitely had me the most intrigued, since we were allowed to really go in depth with whatever we wanted to do, without any real limitations. Creativity trumps most other things in this case, so I'm excited to get started on actual animation! The anticipation workshop went well, and I came out with a lot more knowledge about the topic than I originally had. It also helped to go and work on something, then go back and make it better. As mentioned in previous posts, the talk about failure and iteration really helped with that. 

Anthropomorphism, as mentioned before, was in intriguing lecture but not one I can apply all too much to my essay. At this point, I’m pretty certain on my question, being something along the lines of “How does Emmet represent the LEGO brand and group accurately?” I have to talk about visuals and movements regarding this, and I think that I have some good points that tie in with both of those factors, plus my question. Visuals can be discussed with how Emmet has little imperfections and LEGO accurate designs, which show the more realistic minifigure look than other LEGO projects have. For movement, I want to discuss how Emmet only moves in ways LEGO minifigures can; no “illegal” movements. Hoping to have a solid plan of action for the essay soon!

Still, excited for the character design workshops and for more to come!

WEEK 3 SUMMARY

WEEK START - 8th of October

WEEK END - 14th of October

This week didn't have one focus in particular, it was just a range of different tasks going on.

WALK CYCLE 

 (Walk Cycle - Pass 1)

"When we were first presented with this task, I won't deny, I found it a bit daunting. While I've tried walk cycles before, they weren't necessarily great. They staggered and gave a very rough feel, and I worried my previous inexperience would hinder this attempt. Even when drawing out each frame, with a reliable reference on the screen at the front, I felt like when I line tested, it would turn out bad and I'd have to try again.

As mentioned, I followed along with the guide at the front. While I needed the reference for the contacts, passings and highs & lows, I felt confident enough with the inbetweens to do them myself. I would occasionally flick through my drawings, trying to get some semblance of just what it would look like in motion, I couldn't get a good idea of it.

Eventually, I managed to line test and I was extremely happy with the results! Where I had worried that the animation would look bad while drawing the frames, putting them all together brought out a smooth, convincing walk cycle!" (link to original post)

(Walk Cycle - Pass 2)

"Once the main walk cycle was complete, we moved onto getting the arms to move. We were only really given the first contact position to work with, alongside being advised that it's the same basic principle as the legs when it comes to how to position the other frames.

I was much more confident with this step, since I have a better idea of how arms work than legs. I decided to offset the arms by one frame; for example, where the extreme for the legs would be frame 1, the arms' extreme would be frame 2. I figured this would make a less robotic movement, since it doesn't look like a deliberate effort to move both arms and legs at the same time.

I'm happy with how the arm animation turned out, having the figure seem like they're doing a "happy march", for lack of a better term." (link to original post)

CHARACTER ARCHETYPES

For my original post on character archetypes, click here.

I'm confident discussing about the different archetypes found in the hero's journey in depth, and will definitely have to consciously remember them when creating my own stories.

VISITING LECTURER

For my original post and thoughts on Robert Morgan's lecture, click here.

ITERATION AND FAILURE

<video here when completed>

 (link to original post)

SUMMARY

Overall, I feel like this week went well! I didn't have any real experiences of panic or worries with what I was making or being taught, and I feel like I took everything in stride effectively. Going forward, I feel like the most important thing I learnt about this week was the walk cycle; now that I know how to do them properly, I can now use them when designing characters in both my work and for personal use. However, I think the lessons taught about failure will stick with me pretty well too. Especially how we should try to fail sometimes, and learn from it. Taking risks is something to do going forward.

WEEK 2 SUMMARY

WEEK START - 1st of October

WEEK END - 7th of October

This week was mostly based around learning more techniques to do with Dynamics. On both Monday and Thursday, we did actual animation exercises; both involving bouncing balls.

Regular Bouncing Ball

Bouncing Ball with Squash and Stretch applied

"I didn't run into any real issues with this task, and I feel I completed it in about average time. I didn't feel like I was going too quickly and rushing, which was a worry I'd had last week. At the same time, I wasn't going really slowly to the point of annoying myself." (link for original post)

Secondary Action - Bouncing Man

"I decided to add a little figure sitting on top of the ball, who would bounce up and down as the ball did. I was really enthusiastic for this task, especially since it allowed for more creativity and personality than the other tasks.

I ran into one problem where I wasn't sure what the appropriate distance between two frames would be, which lead to two different versions of frame 12, dubbed "12 v1" and "12 v2". After using both and comparing outcomes, I found that 12 v1 worked better." (click for original post)

Secondary Action - Portal Gun

"I wanted to have it somewhat inspired by the Portal game series, by having the ball bounce along, open up a portal, fall through it, and continue bouncing after falling out the second portal. I didn't run into any issues with this animation; I thought that was surprising, given the more complex arcs and the amount of things in the air I had to manage." (click for original post) 

I'm really happy with how these came out, especially the Portal Gun one. It took some trial and error for certain little bits within animations, especially when it came to spacing of stretched out bouncy balls on ascension and descent. However, these issues were easily solved with making multiple versions of the same frame, and seeing which one worked best.

If I was to tackle this task again, I maybe would've considered varying ball weights for each animation. For all 4 animations, they all seem to be the same weight and bounciness; that being, very light and very bouncy. To try and bring in some more variety, I would try a heavier ball with an appropriate secondary action to go with it; for example, a bowling ball sort of weight, maybe crushing a bowling pin upon contact with the ground.


This week, I'm also more confident regarding the character essay. The session about building characters from the inside out proved beneficial, especially in the sense that I've since looked back at old characters I made and realising how flawed they are as characters.

I'm now fairly assured that I'm going to go with Emmet from The LEGO Movie, with my question still needing the final validation before I delve further. Right now, primary research is on the character, the film and the brand the two are based upon.


Overall, this was a great week! Many useful techniques that will prove valuable in the future, both of this course and in my animation career in general. This week’s introduction to the bouncing ball and secondary actions were really interesting. It’s steadily creeping into the territory of animation I’ve been looking forward to doing, with more fun visuals and creativity involved; “the good stuff” if you will. I’d say in terms of improvements, I’d say the portal gun secondary action animation could use a little timing work, and some more obvious cues for the portal gun actually appearing. But apart from that, happy all around!

WEEK 1 OVERVIEW AND SUMMARY

WEEK START - 24th of September

WEEK END - 30th of September

This week was the introduction for our projects for the next two months, focusing on the fundamentals of animation. Within the fundamentals project, we focus on four areas:

1 - Dynamic Animation

2 - Character Design

3 - A character research essay

4 - Life Drawing

This week, we focused on Dynamic Animation and the essay.

MONDAY
On Monday, we were introduced to what we would be doing over the next 8 weeks, including exercises in multiple mediums (stop motion, 2D hand-drawn, 2D digital), different types of exercises (walk-cycles, ball bounces and pendulum swings), as well as programs we would be using. We were explained the concept of framerates, and certain characteristics involving it which makes the illusion of animation more convincing.

We then moved onto talk about Dynamic Animation in itself. It involves creating a believable movement, that feels right for whatever's moving. Inertia (the weight / effort involved with an object), different forces and resistances are all defined and discussed in terms of how they affect an animated object.

These forces also affect speed and acceleration. Movement from point A to point B isn't strictly linear, so frames controlling speed had to be considered. Anticipation and held positions help simulate a more believable movement.

That afternoon, we were grouped up and sent to work in DragonFrame (a line testing program) to try and create an accurate pendulum swing animation using a penny and a piece of string, keeping in mind pendulum weight, length and direction. We used an HD Webcam 920 to capture our images, as well as the DragonFrame program mentioned prior. A peripheral was also used to capture the images; a keyboard-like extension with dedicated keys to capture images, cycle through previous frames, etc.

We took reference for the animation from a series of photographs we had taken, where we swung a ball on a string very lightly, to see how the pendulum would have to be translated. After we got out references, we moved to the computer and tried to start animating.

Unfortunately, my group hit a bump in the road, in that DragonFrame wouldn't work properly. Upon boot-up, you need to change the capturing source and video assist source from the integrated webcam to the inputted one. However, when we changed this, nothing happened onscreen. After numerous log-ins and outs for around 20 minutes, we simply restarted the computer entirely, and then it started to work. Troubleshooting the issue took up valuable animation time, and it's never easy to predict when you're going to encounter a problem like this. Next time, safeguards should be drawn up in case something like this happens again.

Once we had fixed the problem, we managed to create two animations; the first, we agreed, felt a bit too unnatural. It seemed like the weight of the pendulum fluctuated, which didn't deliver a convincing movement. We retried, this time considering using fewer frames so that even if we had a skeleton of a swing, we could see what worked and what didn't. Our second attempt turned out much better, giving a more believable swing.

If we were to do this again, I'd say creating a much more concise plan of action would be beneficial. Outlining backups, some kind of written list of frames needed, all should be used come next line test.

TUESDAY
Tuesday was our introduction to the character research essay. In the unit, we would be looking at why characters & research matter, the history of animated characters, how to develop characters, archetypes vs stereotypes, and learning essential research and essay skills.

The essay is to be 1000 words (with a margin of 100 words each way). We choose an animated character and question (the latter being guided by a tutor), and keep working on it while getting individual assistance for rough drafts. We were also advised to start a list of characters we may use, which I'll include at the end of the Tuesday summary. We do have to consider which characters would be helpful or not; this can be in terms of what area of animation we want to go into, what types of characters we want to make, etc.

We also went over contextualisation. Looking at a character from a broader viewpoint, and thinking of them in terms of what larger archetype / genre they fall into, the social and / or cultural issues, and their message of both the fictional world they reside, and the real world.

We talked about what a character IS. There were a few definitions, but the two main ones were:

"Usually a being represented in a film, play or story" 

and

"A particular combination of qualities distinctive to a person or place."

Characters are important because they're the thing that audiences remember most about a film. People may not remember the plot of The Empire Strikes Back, but they'll remember Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. Characters don't necessarily have to be human, but they have to be human enough to have audiences relate to. This can be achieved through simple character motivations and goals, or through anthropomorphism (the act of giving a non-human human qualities). Human qualities in characters are there for the human audience, who want to connect with this characters beyond just seeing them.

Characters are also used as a delivery method of a message or moral. For example, Wreck-It Ralph's titular character delivers the message that it's ok to be yourself, even when others around you judge you on a surface level.

"I'm bad... and that's good. I'll never be good... and that's not bad. There's no-one I'd rather be than me" - Ralph, "Wreck-It Ralph" (2012)

We then went on to watch a series of key turning points in animation, including:

• Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) - Considered the first character based animation, where a live action man would "talk" to the dinosaur, and it would react accordingly. Gertie's actions gave off a personality no unlike a dog's, with an occasional response to command, but usually just doing what they want.
• Felix the Cat (1919) - The first animated "star", Felix's adventures often involved him getting into situations do to his cheeky, anarchic personality. The cartoons were also some of the first to utilise the rubberhose style, which involved characters ignoring basic anatomy rules and stretching and removing body parts.
• Out of the Inkwell (1921) - Created by the Fleischer Brothers (who would later go on to make Betty Boop and Popeye), the series would show off rotoscope animation, where an animator would draw on top of a piece of live action reference. 
• Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (1927) - Walt Disney's first cartoon star, before being lost to Universal head Charles Mintz soon after the characters inception.
• Mickey Mouse (1928) - The first Mickey Mouse cartoon Walt Disney released, "Steamboat Willie", was the first cartoon to be synced with recorded sound, including the iconic whistle now played at the beginning of every Walt Disney Animation Studios film.
• Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) - The first feature length animated picture, made in a drought of short form cartoons. It was a big gamble for Disney, with the term "Disney's Folly" being coined. Would they hold audience interest for 90 minutes? Could they make audiences care for an animated character? No-one knew, because it hadn't been done before. Fortunately, due to a new focus on "warmth and believability", Snow White went on to make $8,000,000 to a $2,000,000 budget.

Through Snow White, we also had a look at one specific scene designed to deliver an emotional punch to the audience; where the Huntsman nearly kills Snow White. We found that building up the shadow, followed by the knife, and contrasting it next to Snow White's innocence, delivered a more powerful pathos (appeal to the emotions).

That was all we had Tuesday, so I started coming up with characters I could look at for the essay.

• Buzz Lightyear (Toy Story, 1995)
• Emmet (The LEGO Movie, 2014)
• Bill Cipher (Gravity Falls, 2012 - 2016)
• Mr Meeseeks (Rick and Morty, 2013 - Present)
• Genie (Aladdin, 1992)
• Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons, 1927)
• Batman (The LEGO Batman Movie, 2017)

THURSDAY

Thursday was out introduction to traditional 2D animation methods. I was really excited for this; I'd wanted to try it for ages, but never had the proper resources for it. Before delving into it though, we had a talk on research for our projects. It's a vital aspect of studies, and vital in gaining a better understanding too. We were also advised to look BEYOND animation for inspiration. Live action films, fine art, fashion, games, comic books... all valid sources of inspiration. We were also advised to look into colour theory, historical context, cultural representation and ethics through research too.

Onto the animation task of the day, we looked at the three different types of frames in 2D animation; the Extremes, the Passing Positions, and Inbetweens.

Extremes, also known as Keyframes, are what represent the start and end of an action, with some kind of change in position, shape, direction, etc. 

Passing Positions, or the Breakdown, is the frame in the middle of the two extremes, midway through the action.

Inbetweens are between two images, filling the gap between them and creating the illusion of movement.

Spacing Charts were also demonstrated to us. Spacing charts are visual representations of the spacing of frames, with the extremes being at each end, and frames represented by smaller lines being inbetween. 

(Moana line test, produced before the CG animation, uses multiple spacing charts for each of Moana's smaller movements. Animated by Randy Haycock.)

By bunching up certain frames at the beginning and end of a motion, it creates a nicer easing in and out movement. An object will slow down, then speed up exponentially, then gradually slow back down once it's halfway through it's arc.

After all the build up talk, it was time to get working on our animation! We did a pendulum swing once again, this time using pencils and F12 Paper; the special kind of holed paper animators used. The paper fits a specially designed peg bar, and allows multiple pieces of paper to be stacked on top of each other while still remaining lined up. The paper also has a slight translucent quality to it, so you can see drawings previously made up.

My first pendulum swing was made up of 13 frames, and while it was a good first start, i was advised to try again. The first pass was a bit too fast, and needed more frames for the ease in and out. The arc was also too straight, and needed a bit more curve to it.



Going back to the drawing board (literally), I gave it another shot with more frames and an altered arc. This version used nearly 20 frames, and had a much nicer ease in / out, and a more believable arc.


Satisfied with my pendulum swing, I moved onto the second task. For this, we had to interrupt the pendulum somehow, so that it wouldn't complete one full swing. We had no instructions on how to do so, and were told to be creative with it. I decided that making the pendulum act like a wrecking ball could be a fun way to go about it.

I started the arc with a very slight swing to the right, to build up some momentum. The ball then swung quite hard to the left, until it finally swung right quite fast, hitting a wall before it had the chance to ease out. The ball interacted with the wall, having chunks of it blow out and a dust cloud pass over the ball. I was extremely satisfied with the first pass of the animation, as it had achieved exactly the effect I wanted.


Doing this task again, keeping believability in mind is an essential step to take from the get-go. My enthusiasm of the task slightly clouded that judgement in the first pass, leading to a pendulum swing that left a lot to be desired. But if I keep working like how I did for the second pass of the pendulum swing, then I should be fine going forward. 

CONCLUSION
Overall, I feel like this week was mostly focused on taking first steps. Not just in animation, but into the course and university life in general. We now know all our starting points, and how to best utilise and learn from them. If I was to take one thing I learnt this week to continue doing, it would definitely be the traditional animation methods. Drawing every frame on paper is unusually satisfying to do, compared to my usual methods in 2D digital animation.