After taking in some feedback, I've changed my poses slightly in order for their silhouettes to be more recognisable and strong.
Poses after feedback
Silhouettes after feedback
The main differences:
The first model to the left now has 'negative space' between his elbow and chest; though the photograph doesn't have this, it also doesn't allow for the silhouette to be strong enough to be recognised. Its right foot has also been rotated more to ensure twinning (or mirroring) does not occur in the feet.
The second model now has his left foot further behind him in order to be properly balanced, however the front orthographic view of this doesn't really prove it too well. The model also has his left hand moved to the side more in order to see it clearly as a silhouette, as well as having his hips and collar bones rotated in such a way that complement each other on balance.
The third model also has its left hand moved to the side slightly for the same reasons, and its shoulders/collar bones have been moved up into a form of shrugging pose that better communicates the whole pose to the audience.
The fourth model has its right foot rotated more for the same reason as the first. It also has its left arm rotated as to create a gap, or negative space, therefore allowing better recognition.
There are two editors that can be used for animation that can be very powerful tools. These editors are called the 'Graph Edtior' and the 'Dope Sheet'.
Dope Sheet
The dope sheet can be used in a number of ways, for something as simply as moving a set key forward or back in frames. However it becomes quite powerful when you use it for 'overlapping' and 'follow through' in animation.
Overlapping is when a model has something like long clothing or long hair, and when the model moves the clothing or hair follows its movements, but at only a frame or so behind. This is extremely useful for making animations realistic, as in real life objects such as clothing or hair are bound by the laws of physics as is everything, and so forces such as inertia have to be taken into account to produce something believable. The dope sheet allows us to do this because you can select the keys on the bone that controls the hair, and then move them back a frame or two. Therefore the hair (hair-bone in the rig) will move as it would do in real life.
Follow through is different to overlapping, and an example of this is the idea of a moving object/model suddenly stopping. What I mean by that is if you take, for example, a person running at their fastest and then tell them to suddenly stop as quick as possible, the first thing to stop will be their feet and then their legs and then their upper body will probably lunge forward a little, until eventually they are stood still. So when i say follow through, i mean the domino effect of physics on a body; what happens after a force is applied (be it a stopping force, etc.)
Graph Editor
The graph editor is good for tweaking things such as the path of a ball between set key frames. In the image you can see the line descending and then suddenly ascending after the second key frame (2nd black dot). This would show the ball in the 3D environment falling, hitting a floor, and then suddenly bouncing back up. This type of behaviour can be difficult to produce without using the graph editor because in the graph editor you can choose the key frame's tangents and rotate them into an acute angle which produce a sharp point for the path to follow. Whereas in key framing without using the editor, you would have to constantly tweak the speed of the ball on the impact and bounce in order for it to be accurate and life like. It can be done, but is far more time consuming and less practical than the graph editor.
I'm going to post eight emotional poses in total soon, but I only have four for now. Underneath you can see photographs that I have taken of myself expressing certain emotions. Under that there are 3D model versions of these emotions, and finally underneath those I have shown the silhouettes of the 3D models. Silhouetting is important as an audience sees a strong silhouette and can usually determine the action or emotion that is being played out or provoked.
From left to right: Success, frustration, confusion, and fearful
The silhouettes do not show facial expression, so they have to be strong in order to be recognised
Here's a video of a very quick animation i made where i am trying to replicate the bounce of a bowling ball.
Underneath this video you can also watch a video to see my reference.
My animation.
Reference video.
One thing I've noticed that is slightly wrong in my animation is that on the first bounce, whilst in mid air, it moves too quickly to the next bounce. I think it is as simple as adding one more frame to the space between the first and second bounce as its path in the graph editor looks fine, but practise makes perfect.
For our first small assignment in the Intro to Animation module, we were given the task of creating a bouncing ball animation. The best way to understand the real world physics of a bouncing ball, for example how its mass, velocity, material etc. affects its bounce, is to get personally involved with reference gathering.
With that being said, myself and a few others got into a group and bounced two different types of balls, and did so with different variables. I recorded the video, Jack dropped the ball and timed how long it took to stop bouncing, Oliver counted the bounces and Josh wrote all those statistics down for later use.
We video recorded them bouncing, as well as took recordings of the number of times they bounced, the way in which their movement started (i.e. throwing soft, hard, or dropping.) and how long it took them to stop bouncing.
Here are the results and explanations:
Tennis Ball Drop:Statistics:
So here is the tennis ball drop. For the drop the ball was simply allowed to just roll off Jack's hand.
*Note that when I say tennis ball for this video and all other videos with the tennis ball, the ball is in fact just an imitation of a tennis ball; it is a bit more 'squishy' and foam like compared to a real tennis ball.
Bounces: 10
Time: 4 seconds
Tennis Ball Soft Throw:
Bounces: 11
Time: 5 seconds
Tennis Ball Medium Throw:
Bounces: 12
Time: 6 seconds
Tennis Ball Hard Throw:
*Note: Ball hits ceiling
Bounces: 15
Time: 8 seconds
Football Soft Throw:
*Note that the football is also just an imitation of an actual football
Bounces: 15
Time: 4.5 seconds
Football Medium Throw:
Bounces: 17
Time: 7 seconds
Football Hard Throw:
*Note: ball hits ceiling
Bounces: 17
Time: 10.2 Seconds
Self referencing conclusion:
Both types of balls bounce according to the initial downward force applied to them, in other words the greater the initial force the more they bounce, and vice versa. The only time this isn't shown to be true is when the ball collides with the ceiling, but of course in doing it loses some of its energy.
The football bounces a greater amount of times than the tennis ball because in ratio to its size it has less mass. So even though it's larger it is also not as heavy, this is because the material that it is made from, as well as the fact it has more air inside.
The material the football is made from allows it to be more flexible and so store more energy on collision with the floor, therefore allowing it to bounce back to a greater height and repeat the action. The tennis ball however is not as flexible, and compared to the football is a lot heavier in terms of mass to size ratio.
Its good practise to note the materials in which objects are made of and that of which they are colliding into. For example the football is smooth but the floor has carpet on it, so when it collides the floor absorbs some of the kinetic energy from the ball. Had the ball also have been 'furry' then it would lose even more energy on collision.
The opposite would have happened if the floor was made from concrete; the ball would have bounced to an even greater high and more than likely would have increased the amount of bounces it made overall before stopping.
