How to ease-in the animation?

This week I thought a lot about stretch and squash, ease-in and out, timing. All this thought s were pointed toward exercise I should do first in order to get things right.

I thought to do this by 2D and 3D, but my Genius tablet is acting up, so I didn't do much 2D as I planned.

At the end I read through some books, and done few animations.

Ease-in and Ease-out

In following example I tried to put linear cycle of the falling ball and eased in cycle together so I could see what impact difference it makes.

My initial observations, as well as prior knowledge were that to every organic motion there is a rhythm, slow-ins and slow-outs if you will. We don't walk linear, and our joints can't stop in place. So easing-in and out of motion is what makes motion believable.

In this example, first two motions are linear, while other two are eased. First ball would be appropriate for a elevator or some mechanical contraption, but it certainly is not a real ball.

Linear motion, in this case fall, disregards gravity, so that is a further fact that makes motion less believable.

Other two balls I tried to display mass quality as well. If ball has a great mass, then it would take more time for it to pass extreme position (in this case, highest or lowest position). Inertia would bind it and hold it for a while.

I tried to do it by flattening out the y position curves in peak spots.

To summarize:

• Easing-in and out of motion is a process in which speed of a motion is either increased toward the finish of the motion or decreased. This is done by in/decreasing number of different in-betweens or by adjusting the type of curve in more of an S shape in 3D software.

• It helps convey natural motion, mass of the object or external forces that act on an object (gravity)

• Lack of ease-in or ease-out can convey mechanical nature of the motion, when appropriate.

My next post will deal probably with stretch/squash and timing

My little public animation school

After a long time I'm finally concentrating on my animation skills.

Frankly I'm not satisfy and I'm determined to develop them from the ground up.

This is my Lesson plan, that I'm going to try and fill in next few years, publicly, on this blog.

I'm going to use this blog to force myself to find the time and do the exercises, although my time is divided between my work and my family life.

So, this is the plan:

Lesson plan

12 principles of animation

Squash & Stretch

Anticipation

Staging

Straight ahead and Pose-to-pose

Follow through and overlapping action

Slow in and Slow out

Arcs

Secondary motion

Timing

Exaggeration

Solid drawing

Appeal

Simple animation

Walk-cycle

Hopping

Physical excurses

Complex motion

Acting

Pantomime

Various emotional states

Analysis of silent movies

Facial animation

Emotional expressions without sound

Lip-synching

Complex acting

11 second club

I'm hoping that some of you who find yourself on this page find the time and kindness to suggest types of excursuses or modifications to the plan that could be helpful on my path of learning.

Also, I hope that you will frequent my blog and comment on the excursuses.

I'll try and do 2D and 3D excursuses as much as possible, at least for 12 principles. But if it gets time consuming I'll orient toward 3D.

Ok. I guess this is it, no turning back now. Wish me luck :)

Bit of overdoing

I tried to add a jump when the mail is open. I added body follow-up when pointing and did some tweaking.

I don't know.. it seems a bit rushed, like its too much going on.
What do you think?



this is more alive approach to the material. He's not so much laid back, as before.

Little refinement

I did a bit refining in the animation curves area. Some things are little smoother, I think.
I also rendered silhouette and noticed that I had no good pose at the end. So I added this 'Alright then' pose that translates feeling rather good I guess.

I've seen some floating in the spine area, but it's getting late so it will have to wait a bit.

this is it:

Second pass

I finally reserved some time to adjust the animation.

I simplified hand movements, added some brow and eyelids.

Hope you like it

Refined first pass

I thought I wouldn't post anything until I do second pass rigt. But after much favorabile and motivating C&C at 11second forum, I decided to do what I can and post ahead.

This is a bit refined first pass with head movement, blinking and lip sync.

My rig is abe only to open mouth so I tried to do some 'teeth acting'.
Maybe it's too much jaw work, but....

I also tried to simplify final two poses after the snip sound.

Without further ado:

Second part added

I thought I will have no time today to do this, but I managed.
Here is whole animation. I added the props so it's not as it was.

Remember: put props before animating!

anyhoo, here it is:

11 second club - half of the first pass

Wow! This is a big one for me. After all this time my second post. And what a post it is.
I'm entering July animation competition on '11secondclub.com' and starting to chronicle my attempts on this blog.
This is first half of the first pass I managed to do until now. It took me 4 tries until I landed with this. My mistake is to not act it out to the camera, but here it is.
Now, to get back to the second half of the clip, that is to my next post.
Hope you like it and put some C&C.