Exercise 4: It's a Pitch

[Zzzippo]

Here is my version of Exercise 4:

 

Name: Scott Bowers

 

Exercise Completed: Exercise #4

http://www.livevideo.com/video/052F8E01E4F...s-a-pitch-.aspx

 

Date Completed: 10-09-07

 

Instructor: The A:M Community

 

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement: Was done w/ this last night but internet kept going out..... Those Comcast guys be dammed!

[virus81]

Name: BISHNU C MAL

 

Exercise Completed: 4 (It's a Pitch)

 

Date Completed: 02 Dec 2007

Exercise_4a.mov

[PPi]

Name: Petri Pirttinen

Exercise Completed: Exercise 4 - It's a Pitch

Date Completed: Dec 30 2007

Instructor: The manual, web tutorial

Remarks: Didn't quite manage it in 1 hour. Even though the "Move It" did seem almost too easy on changing poses this time a lot of tweaking was needed. Once again reference pictures compares to solid gold (for me at least). But now we are really getting into subject!

 

Initially wanted to make this a two shot scene but had a lot of difficulties with combining those inside A:M. Think I'll return to that later with a little bit of tweaking. Had fun though.

 

Exercise4.mov

[brockgs]

Student: Brock Gunter-Smith

Date Completed: February 9, 2008

Exercise 4: It's a Pitch

 

I had fun with this one. While I did constrain myself to just an hour to follow along with the video and complete the exercise, I loved the small little tweaks. I need to look into where/how I can view the key frames. I found myself wishing I could see what key frames existed for my right foot because I wanted to delete some to correct for too many corrections (creating a subtly shifting foot).

 

I'm definitely starting to feel more comfortable with the controls and navigation using the keyboard shortcuts. I finally had to plug in a full sized keyboard though as not having a separate numeric keypad on my MacBook Pro was getting annoying and inneficient when wanting to swap views.

 

-> Brock

Ex4_Brock_Gunter_Smith.mov

[Caroline]

That looks a good throw.

 

Have you looked at the Timeline? Although not necessary for this exercise, it's never to early just to take a look at it and start to understand it, as it's central to animation. View Menu > Timeline.

 

There are two ways to look at the Timeline -

 

 

The first icon on the left shows you Spline View. The second on the left shows keyframes on bones.

 

Keyframes view is easier to select ranges of bones to move along the timeline.

 

Spline View shows the interpolation between two keyframes for a particular bone.

 

(Tip - if you want to move a keyframe sideways, hold down the '1' key above the letters while dragging with the mouse.)

[Rodney]

Yes, as Caroline states now might be a very good time to take a look at the Timeline.

Unless you are a very rare breed of animator you'll be using it in Exercise 6.

 

Concerning this exercise... you've got a lot going for you in this shot.

The first thing is your camera angle. Nice choice!

The angle lets us see all of the important movements of the knight.

As a member of 'the audience' that makes me very happy as I'm getting my money's worth.

 

Another thing you have here that we often don't see from beginning animators is Motion Blur.

Yours is quite nice! (see attached for my favorite frame with it)

I'd say whomever is batting against the Knight had better keep his eye on that ball. He's throwing pretty fast!

 

Very nice job!

 

If you master everything else in TaoA:M my personal challenge to you would be to return to this exercise and animate a character throwing a ball.

The ball adds a new dimension to this that really helps the lesson sink in.

[Rodney]

Petri said:

Initially wanted to make this a two shot scene but had a lot of difficulties with combining those inside A:M.

 

Here's a shout out to Petri. I'm still trying to catch up on older posts.

 

Hopefully you aren't having as many difficulties combining shots as you were back in December.

If you are let us know and we'll explore that together.

 

Combining shots together is absolutely necessary to the animation filmmaker.

[PPi]

Hopefully you aren't having as many difficulties combining shots as you were back in December.

If you are let us know and we'll explore that together.

 

Combining shots together is absolutely necessary to the animation filmmaker.

 

Heh, thanks for noticing. Unfortunately I didn't manage to figure it out back then and recently I've been just too busy to get involved with A:M... Indeed, I need to take a closer look on it sooner or later but just now I haven't had time for it yet (and I feel like exploring and doing TaoA:M exercises is priority number one to get the software and workflow familiar).

 

My approach on combining shots may have been all wrong though. What I did back then was two targa image sequences, one for each shot, and then trying to combine those back in A:M. I actually can't recall what the main problem was but obviously there was some major trouble with it

 

I really need to give it a try once more :-)

[Rodney]

Editing shots together in A:M is mostly a matter of placing your two image sequences into A:M in the right place. Then adjusting them as needed. If can get a lot more complicated depending on effects, transitions and the like being added of course.

 

One of the more brute force methods to editing sequences together is to add the images you want in a sequence to the same folder, make sure they are sequentially numbered and Save As Animation that way. This in effect is what A:M automatically does for you behind the scenes when rendering.

 

By way of explanation consider the following:

You have:

 

3 images in Folder A

3 images in Folder B

0 images in Folder C

 

Assuming these images are compatible for compositing/editing together then our goal would be to add Image1.jpg and Image 2.jpg from Folder A to Image3.jpg in Folder B. Rather than add them where they reside, risking overwriting our original files, we create a new folder (Folder C) where we copy those three images.

 

When seen then the images play as before:

 

Image1.jpg

Image2.jpg

Image3.jpg

 

But we've created a new sequence that combines the two sequences.

 

A:M and other programs do this same basic manipulations but on different scale.

The work and even the consideration of all the moving and sequencing are mostly invisible.

 

This is a gross oversimplification of course but sometimes it helps to understand the process.

In most cases the images copied are of varied names and numbers that easily break the sequence.

This is where the program comes in handy and internally renames/resynchronizes the sequence.

Of course we could rename all of the files manually if we had the time and inclination.

 

With most programs its not the files that are physically moved but rather the pointers to those files identify the images that are moved. In this way the program utilizes images listed from a variety of sources as dictated by the one creating the list.

 

In A:M then we can use the Timeline and Rotoscopes or a variety of other tools and processes to tell the renderer what to render.

 

A camera then might be told to use only Image2 from a sequence of images and maintain that image for 24 frames while another command will tell it to add at the end of that (at frame 25) an entire sequence of images from 1 to 500.

 

The lesson here would be that while we can do most of this by brute force the manual way it is going to be a lot better to let A:M do the hard work for us.

[brockgs]

That looks a good throw.

 

Have you looked at the Timeline? Although not necessary for this exercise, it's never to early just to take a look at it and start to understand it, as it's central to animation. View Menu > Timeline.

 

Excellent Caroline. Thanks for the tip. I'm busy going through and tweaking the keyframes right now. :-) This definitely helps everything sink in a little better as it's much more clear what keyframes are being created at what times.

 

-> Brock

[MasterFunk]

Name: Sean Concannon

 

Exercise Completed: Exercise 4

Post the results of your work in the New Users Forum under the specific exercise topic.

 

Date Completed: Feb 26 2008

 

Instructor: Manual

 

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement: none

Pitch.mov

[opifex]

Name: Matthew Gayton

 

Tutorials completed: 4

 

Instructor: Rodney and the AM Manual writers.

 

Well, I've been away for a few weeks. Put two more gigs of RAM in, a new sound-card and installed Windows Vista. After a week I uninstalled Vista and went back to XP. Now all my programs and peripherals work again! Yea!

 

Something told me that this exercise was very important as it is really the first time I've actually animated a character. So, rather than just mimic a few sketches in the manual I videotaped myself doing a little 'It's a Pitch' routine and used the video as a rotoscope guide to move the knight. I turned off the 'Balance' and 'Balance Rigid' pose sliders as it mentions in the video tutorial (but not in the manual for some reason.) I found that I had better results by making 'Key Branch' key-frames rather than the whole model (which tended to erase things like finger movement) and made use of the time-line.

 

The knees 'pop' near the end which I know I could fix but since I've already lagged so long on this tutorial I figure that I had to get it out at some point of imperfection rather than never.

 

Another reason this one took me so long is that I realize that for all the years I've dreamed of being an animator now that I am actually starting to do animation I'm terrified of failure. This is really weird as I am not competing with anyone but myself. Ah well... I'm getting it done and will now move on to the next tutorial.

 

Cheers all!

 

ItsAPitchFinalMOV.mov

 

P.S. I've seen some really great work on this one; lot's of creative people here in the TAO AM forums!

[Caroline]

Well that one certainly wasn't a failure! Very enjoyable.

 

Personally I think 'failure' can be a good thing. I look at all my failed models and animations, and for every failure I have chalked up some learning experience. I think it is much more important to actually produce stuff, even if it turns out to be a 'failure'. Remember that sales quote - for every No you are closer to a Yes. I have a lot more failures to go through before I can be a master.

 

I think that TaoA:M is definitely one area where you get out of it what you put into it. Yes, you can just do the exercises as in the books, but if you go that extra mile, as you have done, you are much more prepared to expand into your own animation.

 

Couple of comments - the movie size was quite large - when you render, make sure you are in the advanced render mode, because you can Set the compression for the mov format. If you have Sorenson Video 3, then use that, otherwise I think Mpeg(?).

 

Also in the render options, under Buffers, set Alpha to OFF, then you will get a nice blue sky instead of the black one.

 

The popping could be because the hips might be a tad too high for the knees.

 

Enjoy Rabbit's Walk!

[opifex]

Thank you Caroline for your kind comments!

 

I use a PC and usually render in AVI format but was unable to upload it. I appreciate you're letting me know about the other compression methods for Quicktime (I used the generic 'animation' selection under the compression drop-down list.)

 

Indeed, I think one can learn more from their mistakes than from their successes sometimes. I look forward to working on the next tutorial!

 

Cheers!

-Matthew

[Howitzer]

Here's mine. I decided to add a ball and some motion blur.

 

ex4_itsapitch.mov

[Rodney]

That was pretty sharp. Good job!

 

From time to time I've suggested that everyone try to add the ball and few have taken up the challenge.

Pat yourself on the back for raising the bar. (You aced the basic assignment and added blur and secondary object too)

 

Any tips or insight into your technique for adding the ball?

Manual placement of the ball?

Path?

Something else?

 

Inquiring minds want to know the method you used.

[Howitzer]

Thanks Rodney. I manually placed the ball in the hand of the knight. And every other frame I keyed the ball into his hand. When the hand sped up before letting go, I keyed the ball every frame, and I also opened his hand up so the ball wouldn't travel through his fingers.

 

You have to give some of the credit to the Hash Inc people, they made a really easy to use system for animating, and were kind enough to include characters to learn with. I don't know any other program that has such a complete set of props and characters to use.

[Rodney]

Thanks for the info. I had a feeling you manually placed it.

Seems like the best way to approach too.

I attempted a method using constraints once... and it didn't work very well. Not very well at all.

 

The path idea I hope to experiment with some day... maybe for a character pitching a really crazy curveball?

 

I don't know any other program that has such a complete set of props and characters to use.

 

There was obviously a lot of though (or very serious unconsious genius?) that went into creating the whole TaoA:M program.

I admit I didn't see it myself for many years but sure can appreciate it now.

 

Consider for instance this exercise.

The fact that it uses the Knight cannot be a mistake or a decision that was thoughtlessly made.

 

With the Knight perhaps more than any other TaoA:M character the focus is placed almost exclusively on the lesson to be learned.

Note how the helmet prevents anything but the most basic change in facial animation... the point here isn't to animate the face... that would be a really bad distraction at this point. Rather, the Knight helps get the classic pitching lesson sunk deep into the mind of the animator at an early stage where it will do the most good.

 

Heck... the lesson here doesn't even consider animating that stoopid ball.

 

While you are certainly free to use other characters for any lesson you can fit them into... I find it hard to imagine a better choice for this exercise.

 

Once the basic lesson sinks in thoroughly... dig deep and take it to the next level.

[Howitzer]

Here is a deviation from the Exercise. I'm not very happy with the throw, and I'll continue working on it until I am.

 

 

thom_and_ball.mov

[Rodney]

Gak! Cough! Sputter! (good thing I wasn't drinking coffee because it'd be coming out of my nose!)

When opening your file I was not expecting that level of quality.

 

I'm thrilled to see you aren't happy with your results as that clearly shows how well you are doing in your progress through TaoA:M and with A:M in general. You aren't satisfied... despite the fact that your animating is really quite good. Its a really short animation but your timing... the pacing... is great.

 

You've got the discipline... never be satisfied... you can always find something to tweak and adjust.

But also keep advancing, reflecting on the lesson applying it in useful ways to other ideas and projects and then keep moving on.

 

Very nice.

[Rodney]

There was something that was scratching at me regarding Thom's pitch that I just couldn't quite grasp so I went on to other things and BOOM! It hit me.

 

For the amount of off balance anticipation shown with Thom in preparation before the throw one might expect the ball to be thrown at a greater speed. Perhaps much more of a straight throw than a lob too? It was your still image frame from the shot that kept drawing my attention back to the animation.

 

Right? Wrong? I don't know. Just an observation.

The amount of time and effect of Thom being unbalanced seems to indicate considerable force that should be reflected in the movement of the ball.

 

If cartoony action is desired though... what you've got may be pretty close to being spot on. Maybe push the exaggeration even more.

[thumperness]

Name: F. David Puthuff

 

Exercises Completed: Four

 

Date Completed: Sunday July 14, 2008

 

Instructor: Rodney

 

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement: Please

 

Here is a link to the fourth completed exercise:

 

http://myspace.com/fdputhuff Go to the video section

 

Thanks Rodney,

[Caroline]

Great pitch, David.

 

In the future you may be wanting the sky to be blue rather than black. In the Advanced Render to File Settings, under Buffers, you will see an Alpha option. Just set this to be OFF, and your sky will render blue.

 

The reason why the ground renders, when you have Alpha=ON, and not the sky is that the Ground is an actual model that you will see in your PWS Objects section. The sky is just the Background in the Camera options.

[MasterFunk]

Here is a deviation from the Exercise. I'm not very happy with the throw, and I'll continue working on it until I am.

 

 

thom_and_ball.mov

I think the reason the throw doesn't look as good as you would like is because thom is not balanced. You should extend his leg in the opposite direction to counter his weight in the front. Great animation though!

 

MasterFunk

[JohnWayne]

John W. Cote

Exercise 4: It's a Pitch, 4 tasks completed so far.

Started 8/7/08 - Completed 8/8/08

Instructors: So far Rodney and Robcat2075

 

I tried to add a ball, because it's a pitch after all can't just throw air. during the wind up the ball doesn't seem to sit in his palm but more at the finger tips, I'm trying to figure that one out. I also noticed the knight spins a bit on his back foot. I should probably lift the heel as he's in the back swing to make it more natural?

 

John

 

Quicktime .Mov in H.246

Exercise4CamBall__JohnWayne_8_8_08.mov

[Rodney]

It has been said that animating a baseball pitch is one of the most difficult things to animate.

This despite the fact that throwing a pitch in real life is fairly straightforward.

 

Balance, Arcs of moment, Strong Poses, Fast and Slow, Squash and Stretch, Anticipation, Follow Through, Exaggeration... all the fundamentals of animation can be applied here. Then throw a ball into the game....WOOO WEE now we're animating!

 

Its always a treat to see what people come up with in this exercise because... while simple on the outside... animating a pitch... it isn't so simple is it?

 

For those of you who have ran through this exercise one or twice you are well on your way.

Note the areas you had difficulty with... etch them in your memory... then move on to the next lesson.

 

You could stay and perfect this one but its better to move on.

When you return to this exercise at a later date or approach similar challenges in other projects you'll be better prepared to tackle them for having worked through Exercise 4.

[robcat2075]

Pretty good! I think you hit the major benchmarks for that exercise which is mostly about learning to keyframe whole poses.

 

For a quick move like that, I'd probably leave the camera stationary so as not to confuse the perspective.

 

I tried to add a ball, because it's a pitch after all can't just throw air. during the wind up the ball doesn't seem to sit in his palm but more at the finger tips, I'm trying to figure that one out.

 

It's possible you had the ball constrained to a control bone in the hand rather than an actual geometry bone of the hand

 

I also noticed the knight spins a bit on his back foot. I should probably lift the heel as he's in the back swing to make it more natural?

 

Perhaps one might keyframe the foot to not shift at all until he lunges forward and then lift the heel and pivot on the toe, but I'm not sure the knight is rigged for that bit of detail.

[Rodney]

I'm not sure the knight is rigged for that bit of detail.

 

He really isn't. The Knight isn't rigged for extensive animation (heel lifts etc).

 

While this could be argued either way... the choice of having the Knight as the character in this exercise is a good one I think. He's overly rigid. He (being made of metal) really shouldn't bend. He shouldn't squash or stretch. Etc... etc... etc.

 

It could be argued that a more versatile actor would be better suited to the task but working with the constraints of the Knight helps to keep this exercise simple. After getting the most out of the Knight by all means grab another character (perhaps one with the Squetch Rig?) and run him/her through the exercise. I think you'll be thrilled with the difference as well as with what you've learned.

[Moonsire]

I'm not sure the knight is rigged for that bit of detail.

 

 

Rodney,

 

I'm sorry for posting here, but I have three notice's that you have tried to contact me:

 

Rodney has sent you a new personal message titled "Re:Your creative works are in danger!".

 

You can read this personal message by following the link below:

 

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?act=M...&MSID=20749

 

and I can't view them. My personal message function isn't working. I have sent at least 2 emails to support, but they haven't been answered. If you know what I can do to get that function back, I would be very pleased. I can't read or send PM's. I am sure I have one I received several weeks ago that I haven't read yet.

 

If you would prefer to email me rather than use this forum my personal email is: Phillip.moon@gmail.com

 

Thanks,

 

Phil...

[Rodney]

Phil,

These are very old messages still stuck in the PM system's cue apparently.

I'm sure you had a chance to read them all as it was in regards to that old post about 'creators rights' and I recall reponding to your replies.

 

The PMs still seem to be running a month or two behind.

 

Note that its not clear whether the PMs will ever return.

So... when in doubt... and you need to contact me... I've got my email address in my signature: rodney.baker@gmail.com

[Moonsire]

Phil,

These are very old messages still stuck in the PM system's cue apparently.

I'm sure you had a chance to read them all as it was in regards to that old post about 'creators rights' and I recall reponding to your replies.

 

The PMs still seem to be running a month or two behind.

 

Note that its not clear whether the PMs will ever return.

So... when in doubt... and you need to contact me... I've got my email address in my signature: rodney.baker@gmail.com

 

 

Thanks Rodney.

[TheSpleen]

knightpitch.mov

 

My pitcher

[number]

Name: Tim Roberts

 

Exercise Completed: Exercise 4

 

Date Completed: Sep 20, 2008 Animation, Sep. 30 Final Composition.

 

Instructor: Manual, forum

 

Comments: Completed this about 10 days ago and finally got the three view composition together in Vegas Pro. The tutorial really has the pitch down. I still need a lot of practice before I'm creating instead of just following.

 

its_a_pitch.mov

[Rodney]

Very nice Tim. Its great to be able to see the action from mulitple angles.

 

For those without video editing programs like Vegas Pro don't let that stop you from compositing your movies together in interesting ways like Tim. There are many ways to add both sequential and still images together in A:M.

 

To recreate the look Tim has created in A:M:

First render your movie sequences.

Add your sequences to the Choreography camera as rotoscopes (drag and drop the images onto the camera in the Project Workspace listing)

Then resize/rescale and place the rotoscopes as needed.

 

For added coolness... render out sequences to TGA format with transparent backgrounds (using Alpha Channels). Then as you composite images you have even better control of the final images and they blend well with other imagery.

 

Need more info on how to do it? Ask here!

 

Well done Tim!

[J90]

Name: Jerome

Exercise: 4

Date Started: 11 Nov 08

Date Completed: 11 Nov 08

Instructors: Manual

 

Pitch.mov

[Rodney]

I'd say that is a near perfect execution of Exercise 4.

 

Very nice!

[J90]

Thanks Rodney,

There is some foot sliding and other issues. Can you see them?

I personally don't like the part where he goes into the "relaxed pose". There is robotic like movement.

[robcat2075]

I personally don't like the part where he goes into the "relaxed pose". There is robotic like movement.

 

"Robotic" happens when everything starts or stops at the same time and/or move at a constant speed while they do it.

 

Undoing that is half of what animators spend their time on. Coming to a complete stop is one of the hardest things to do (well) in animation.

 

But that's a lesson for another day. It looks like you got "the Pitch" working well.

[J90]

I personally don't like the part where he goes into the "relaxed pose". There is robotic like movement.

 

"Robotic" happens when everything starts or stops at the same time and/or move at a constant speed while they do it.

 

Undoing that is half of what animators spend their time on. Coming to a complete stop is one of the hardest things to do (well) in animation.

 

But that's a lesson for another day. It looks like you got "the Pitch" working well.

 

 

Thanks Robcat.

[Gaijin]

Episode 4 - Don't quit your day job ...

 

E4___Troll_Toss.mov

 

Animating Tim the Troll is an interesting challenge - I'll get better next time ...

[TheSpleen]

lol

[Caroline]

 

(Not a useful post, just letting you know people are out there waiting for the next episode )

[Rodney]

Thatz easily the most innovative pitch thatz ere been pitch'd in these partz.

[TNT]

Here is my entry for Exercise 4: It's a Pitch

 

It took a few tries to keep his feet planted.

 

Any feedback is appreciated.

 

Throw2.mov

[robcat2075]

Here is my entry for Exercise 4: It's a Pitch

 

It took a few tries to keep his feet planted.

 

I rather like that! I like the way he pauses a moment to watch the ball. And I like that he doesn't hit his last pose all at once.

 

The path his hand takes while throwing the ball is a bit straightish and perhaps not as overhand as an actual pitcher's. I'm guessing Knight is set to IK arms on this exercise?

 

But i think it's well within limits for the purposes of TaoA:M.

[TNT]

Here is my entry for Exercise 4: It's a Pitch

 

It took a few tries to keep his feet planted.

 

I rather like that! I like the way he pauses a moment to watch the ball. And I like that he doesn't hit his last pose all at once.

 

The path his hand takes while throwing the ball is a bit straightish and perhaps not as overhand as an actual pitcher's. I'm guessing Knight is set to IK arms on this exercise?

 

But i think it's well within limits for the purposes of TaoA:M.

 

Thanks Robcat.

I went back to check and actually IK arms is set to OFF.

I think I should have studied my subject more.

I'm not a baseball fan and guessed at the path for the arm.

I guess there is a lot more to animating a convincing action than setting poses.

[robcat2075]

I think I should have studied my subject more.

I'm not a baseball fan and guessed at the path for the arm.

I'm not a baseball guru either. There probably is some slo-mo footage on the web of a pitcher to study, but that's beyond the scope of #4. The real goal is to get you to set keyframes, and you got that.

 

If you want some more detailed info on setting keyframes look at the "Keyframing Options" vid in the tut link in my signature.

 

I guess there is a lot more to animating a convincing action than setting poses.

True, but those poses are really important.

[Rodney]

Tim,

You should be very proud.

From the poses to the motion that was excellent throughout.

Should you want to perfect it Robert's got you on track.

But I've got to say... if I were you... I'd be extremely happy with that.

 

Seriously.

I always get an impression just before opening a movie here in the forum of what it's going to look like.

I've got to tell you, I wasn't expecting that.

 

Nicely done.

[TNT]

Tim,

You should be very proud.

From the poses to the motion that was excellent throughout.

Should you want to perfect it Robert's got you on track.

But I've got to say... if I were you... I'd be extremely happy with that.

 

Seriously.

I always get an impression just before opening a movie here in the forum of what it's going to look like.

I've got to tell you, I wasn't expecting that.

 

Nicely done.

 

Thanks Rodney

I appreciate the kind words.

After that I had to try Robcat's suggestion to fix the arm's motion.

I also didn't like how abruptly the pitch started. It seemed to happen before you could expect it so I tried to add a little anticipation there also.

I questioned they guys at work about how the pitching arm should arc and they gave me several pointers. I think it's better.

Let me know if it fixed what you and Robcat were seeing please.

 

Thanks,

 

Throw_Better_Arm_Arc2.mov

[robcat2075]

Actually, when he rears back, that is the anticipation of the pitch.

 

I questioned they guys at work about how the pitching arm should arc and they gave me several pointers. I think it's better.

 

I hope they were either baseball pitchers or animators.

 

anyway this is sort of the way I see the throw

 

pitcherpath.mov

 

But what you have is good . Table it for now and move on to the next big challenge in TaoA:M.