[ p l a c i d c h a o s / A M ]

This week our lesson was on, "planning and blocking methods," which are some of the most crucial elements to becoming a great animator.

There are six main concepts behind planning a shot:
1) gut reaction
2) observation
3) thumbnailing
4) video referencing
5) feedback
6) what the director wants

Our assignment this week was to download the bouncing ball character and animate a ball bouncing from an orthographic side view. What I didn't notice, is that the fine print says to animate the ball as if it were a basketball/soccer ball. Ok, the print wasn't that fine, but somehow I never saw it and decided to animate a heavy ball, like a bowling ball.

Here is a playblast of my first attempt

And a revision

We were also supposed to create an excitement pose using Stu

Just like the fine print in reference to the bouncing ball, I didn't see that we were supposed to do this pose, so I turned it in late and didn't receive any feedback on it. I guess it's an okay pose, but feels a bit cliche.