Ilidrake

I'm at work now and will be stuck here for the next month. On the good side I bought The Animator's Survival Kit for my kindle and will be reading it while I'm out. So far lots of good info. I highly recommend it

Well 6 moths was just an example timeline. As for doing what you want, you can use whatever models and props you want. If you focus more on your models and sets than animation simply state in your description that your looking to be judged more on the modeling skills than the animation.

Okay here's the files in a rar. Edit: Just realized I couldn't upload that so here they are seperated? Would it be better to embed them? Bouncing_Ball.cho Ball_Bouncing.prj 128PATCH_SPHERE.MDL

I'd love to see someone else take this and see where it goes. It would definitly give me something to study while I'm off shore. Should I upload my original project for everyone to use or would you guys rather just use your own?

The ultimate goal of this would be to build on animation skills, nothing more. Thus the reason that any model or prop can be used as it will be the animation that is judged. As for a winnder, what's the point in having a competition if there can't be some sense of accomplishment. Working on something for 6 moths and saying I'm number 1 is a good feeling and it gives the people involved something to shoot for. Else why have it at all? There's nothing wrong with competition. If we actually have something I'm gonna participate even though my animation skills are -10 at the moment I like a broad spectrum but I also think a theme would help narrow the field and give people a path to follow. Not really limiting choices just making them think outside there comfort zones.

LOL ya i recall that vid as well. Of course I never really gave it much thought but it's really coming home now. Anyway, this is my current take on the situation. Once more I have changed the timing and adjusted the arc again. This will be my final take for this month. I won't quit playing with this but my month off comes to an end and I have to go back to work for a month. I'll still check up on the forums and post what I can in my off time but working 12 hours a day leaves you tired and I can only play around for 2 hours or so when I am off tour. So please comment and I'll check this forum as soon as I can. Thanks for all the help and feedback, it's helping immensly. ball_bounce.mov

Edit: Ahhhh Got ya. Ya Rob mentioned that and I removed the effect. There is no motion blur in these last renders.

Okay I didn't catch that until after a few scrubs through the timeline. I reduced a few keyframes and continued to tweak the graph. I'm pretty sure this is as far as I can take this. What do you think? Do I need to continue playing around with this or is that pretty good? I don't want to do anything else until I have a firm grip on this but I definitly see what you mean about the arcs and the timing. It definitly has a large impact on the animation being convincing. I mean I can set here and tweak the y-axis until my eyes bleed lol. ball_bounce.mov

Normally this is where I start banging my head into my desk asking the animation gods to kill me lol...but I still continue to work on this. I can only imagine how long it takes to get a complex character animated well if a BALL takes this long. So I tweaked the graphs to look more parabola than oval shapes and this really streamlined the falling and bouncing animation. Then I started adjusting the timing. This of course after studying Rob's graph under a microscope in Photoshop. Is that considered cheating? I'm not sure but I feel that with my lack of experience its imperative to my learning that I study everything these days. So, here is yet another example of the bouncing ball with no stretch or squash. Just a ball dropped from an undetermined distance that has very little bounce in it. ball_bounce.mov

Okay after looking at the examples given to me I started over. Each bounce uses 10 frames spaced evenly apart. After animating each 10 frames I opened the graph view and tweaked the y-axis. After finishing the animation I went outside and actually dropped a basketball to examine the physics. Then after about an hour I came back in and tweaked it a bit more until I came up with this. I don't have any stretch or squah in this so it is just a ball bouncing. It also doesn't go any farther than the last little bounce. I will continue to tweak and then move on to the small ending bounces and a small roll at the end. ball_bounce.mov

I'm curious as well. Pre-planning is one of my problem areas. It's not that i don't pre-plan I just don't 'know' what to plan? This of course is because when it comes to animating I haven't really done any. I've tinkered and played but on recently have I sat down and started to really dig into it. My main focus over the years has been modeling. I really appreciate all the feedback from the community.

Bruce.......I'm speechless. Great idea!!!

Wish I was home to check out rob's vid. Still got 3 hours b4 my trucks speakers are installed.

Not at home right now but will definitly check it out once I'm done in town rob

Okay here's take 3 with a graph of the y-axis. ball_bounce.mov

Okay here is take 2. I sped it up a bit and toned down the stretch and squash. It's a bit smoother I think. I'm not to sure abou the roll at the end. I tried alot of diffrent ways to blend it in. What do you guys think? ball_bounce.mov

Now that's what I'm talking about. We're not discussing modeling, which Marcos and Stian are really, really good at. We're talking about animating. Its a chance to learn what works and what doesn't work. Heck I started doing some of the basic exercises like bouncing a ball and what-not.

For more my own benefit than anyone I started doing some of the old classic exercises. I started simple with the bouncing ball. Once I have mastered this i will move on to more complex things, animation wise. Crits plz...Be brutal if you must ball_bounce.mov

Well and here I thought I had a good idea LOL....as a side thought what's up with So? Are there any plans to do another film after that one? Me personally didn't like doing another Oz film and it'd be nice to do something original after that is finished.

Wow! That is pretty sad. That kind of takes the wind outta the sails...

Well of course a prize would definitly be in order. Then of course there has to be feedback on the WIP that they will be doing. This always motivates me to work harder. And yes there is a lot of talent in this community, we just need to shake the bushes a bit. I don't mind building some props and sets for this, heck I'll do what I can to help out.

Fair enough Rodney So at this point it's safe to say this isn't really a bad idea, in theory. But participation is probably the biggest factor at this point. I would hate to do this and have the same handful of people doing the contest. So we need something simple that everyone can do and gives everyone a chance. This of course is why Rodney's idea for using pre-made characters and sets makes sense. This would allow the people to concentrate on animation and not modeling or rigging. And we could have a community vote for the theme or we could just make some default themes and provide them here on the forums for everyone to use. As for grading I think we could have a small panel of judges, mainly the most experienced from the forums, grade them and crit them. Or we could let the community grade them like the good ol days. Organising could be as simple as having a forum for the contest where people could get the files and give us WIP posts. I can always get online once a day and look at whats being posted and leave comments. And of course put my own animation up. Although at this point I'd say I'm still a beginner lol. Edit: Ya I guess we could encourage people to go there. But from what I've read the majority of people are using Maya and other such programs. The reason I'd like one here is to encourage the use of AM and help people learn the software.

Nice Rodney. Well we can toss the idea back and forth for years and never have any sort of closure to it. How about we either put it to a vote or we just try one and see how it goes? I'd be willing to over see it, my job affords me a lot of time off lol, and for a prize I'd throw in the mocap software. Since we're leaving winter and moving into spring why not have a transition theme, something along the lines of I've been stuck inside all winter and now I'm free.

That sounds fun. I must insist that some sort of prize for best entry. If there is no prize I don't believe there will be many participants. People need to feel a sense of accomplishment for these sort of things. Although I think just for the fun of it should work I don't believe it will lol. I can donate a copy of zign graph mocap software as a prize and a few other things if this thing takes off well enough. I like John's idea. It sounds like fun. We could do a bi-monthly theme.

But I am going to particapate. I was speaking in the past tense. Before now I was never very stable. Things in my life have finally settled down and I can pretty much do whatever I want. So yes, I will be participating and will even help provide some of the prizes if it goes that far.