Week 5 Revisions

View animation HERE.

So according to my mentor, Charles Alleneck at ILM,'s suggestions, I made my revisions. In my Stu pose, he recommended making the arms heavier, rotating the headstone to get a better silhouette and putting slightly more distance between the figures. Pretty minor changes really, but what a difference they make. I already commented on the things that neeed changing n my anticipating bouncing ball animation, I fixed those and Charles liked the revisions. All in all, a successful week. Looking back at it, the ball is feeling a little too gelatinous for my taste, but hindsight is 20/20...

Doug Dooley at Pixar, part-time mentor, dropped me a line apologizing for dissuading me from my original plan, but I reassured him that the advice was good and that I was glad for the reality check. I really took his advice to heart and used my creativity not by having my ball bounce around all crazy like a pinball machine, but by AVOIDING the obstacles. Every bounce nearly misses, and the pieces were carefully re-arranged so that the ball would contact the ground and nothing else. He said he loved my solution and that it made him laugh.

Here's my full response:

thanks dooley!

glad you got a kick out of my creative "solution". theoretically, you're supposed to do the overachiever stuff INSTEAD of the regular assignment. some people did both, but i'm totally glad you steered me away from my original idea. i learned a lot more about anticipation and squash and stretch this way than i would have otherwise, and i feel my squash and stretch is a lot stronger than it was before. had i gone with my original plan i would have spent my time wondering, "now how would a ball react to this angle on a surface?..." i was even contemplating BUILDING a similar set-up and videotaping a ball going through it all, which would have been fun or whatever, but kind of not the point of the whole thing.

(still not sure that my anticipation was successful. i really liked it at first, but now i'm not so sure. any thoughts on that?)

i'm seeing a lot of student work with obstacle courses that have weak anticipation and lots of problems with their timing and spacing with their ping-pong antics. i think giving the option in the first place probably isn't the best idea. would have been cool if the assignment was to do 4 different anticipation variations or something like that... i posted your response on my blog and got lots of positive comments about it. someone even asked me if they could re-post it on another animation board. so don't feel bad about giving good advice.

plenty of time for meat after i've learned how to digest the milk.

thanks again! your feedback is very helpful.

kenshi


He responded:

Well, I think you're understanding the principles of anticipation. If I
were doing it I might try to roll it back ward a little, roll it forward
into a squash, and then have it pop up. You might be getting carried
away with the squash and stretch in the begining too. Everyone is, and
I don't think its bad to go over the top with it in the begining. When
you exaggerate, you can't mess it up and have it go unnoticecd. Its
always better to tone down afterward, if the director wants it to.
Most people are keeping it exaggerated, and it seems to be the rule of
thumb. It makes the characters seem more like living things, but there
is an appeal in that.

The ending is completely right on. If I were going nuts, I'd say you
could (I emphasize could here) put one small squash and stretch on its
roll after its last bounce to sort of give it a super small last bounce,
but hey it looks great.

dooley

I didn't quite understand the full import of what he was saying til now. It was a Q&A with Gavin Moran, animation "mercenary", that really helped open my eyes to the concepts Dooley was referring to. But I'll talk more about that later...