Reflect on what I’ve learned
In the first unit, the initial attempt was to simulate the jumping of certain characters using simple ball bouncing motion. While the creation of ball animations may not seem difficult, in reality, there are many physical details that should be taken into account when creating the script.
Firstly, regardless of the object, it possesses a physical factor within it. It may be highly elastic or nearly non-deformable. During its descent, subsequent motion patterns are influenced by the angle, and I cannot arbitrarily plot its trajectory. I need to consider its energy changes and acceleration variations. Additionally, based on its descent speed, it can indirectly reflect the physical environment it is in—whether it’s low or high gravity, or its inherent weight situation. When it collides, how it deforms must align with my set parameters for this bouncing ball. These are all aspects I should be mindful of when crafting the storyboard script.
After completing the production of the bouncing ball, we incorporated the jumping animation of a character. I chose a spider as my moving character. The spider, with its multiple leg joints, relies on its muscles to control the impact from each jump or landing.
How to effectively portray these muscles is something I need to pay close attention to. It’s crucial for me to focus on these keyframes when creating the storyboard script.
In the subsequent push-pull animations, we extracted keyframes from real-life actions and then added fluid motions to them. This process was quite intriguing. Despite having videos as references, when we translated them into drawings, we still unconsciously mimicked the same actions, simulating them in our minds before putting them on paper.
The challenge I encountered arose with the connected ropes. In my animation of pulling a box, whenever the character’s arms relaxed or tensed, the rope they held onto for pulling the box needed to change accordingly—either tightening or slackening—in accordance with the laws of physics. This posed a certain level of difficulty, but I managed to overcome it.
Next, I attempted to use 3D software to create my walking animation with emotional changes. I personally learned to use Blender to create my character model and rigged it with bones for animation. In total, I rigged it with three types of bones.
During this period, I learned many practical techniques. After completing these tasks, I had the foundation for creating walking animations. Consequently, my first robot animation with a sad emotional walk emerged. However, it moved too slowly. Subsequently, I reworked it, which was a very interesting process. Transforming the imagined movements in my mind into animations and achieving success was truly an amazing feeling.
When it comes to animating animal walks, I initially attempted to create a dog’s gait. While seeking references, I discovered that when a dog starts walking, its hind legs move about 0.5 seconds faster than its front legs. In the storyboarding process, the specific technique involves making the hind legs move approximately two frames faster than the front legs. As the dog moves forward, the front legs lift off the ground slightly later than the hind legs. When the hind legs land and push backward, the front legs just touch down. While the dog walks, most of the time only one foot leaves the ground.
When creating animations, there should only be one frame at most where both feet are off the ground simultaneously, and one foot must be about to make contact with the ground while the other has just left it. Otherwise, the motion will appear as if floating. Later, I attempted to create a walking animation of a horse using Maya. The logic is similar to that of a dog, but it requires more attention to the highs and lows of the terrain.