Advanced Animation_Exercise
23/4/2025-23/7/2025
Ruthlene Chua Zhen Si 0365222
Bachelor of Design (Honours) in Creative Media
- Instruction
- Class Summary
- Task
- Bouncing Ball Animation & Pendulum Exercise
- Feedbacks
- Reflections
INSTRUCTION
Class Summary
Week 1
The first class was more of an introduction. Mr. Kamal explained the module and what we would be learning throughout the semester. It was simple but important because it set the direction for the weeks ahead.
Week 2
This week focused on timing and spacing. I learned that the number of drawings in an action changes how long it lasts on screen. With more frames, the action looks slower, and with fewer frames, it feels faster and sharper. Timing also changes the mood of the action. For example, a head turn can look forceful, casual, or thoughtful depending on how many in-betweens are added. Spacing deals with how the frames are arranged. Most natural actions slow at the start and end, and speed up in the middle. That made me understand why slow in and slow out make movements look realistic. We also studied arcs. Almost every natural motion follows a curved path, whether it is an arm swing, a jump, or even a smile. Straight lines tend to make the action look stiff and unnatural.
Week 3 and 4
During these weeks we learned about elasticity and flexibility. Squash and stretch was introduced as one of the most basic and important principles. It makes objects and characters feel alive, flexible, and believable. We also studied drag, follow-through, and overlapping action. These principles show how different parts of the body move at slightly different times, which adds realism. For example, when a character stops moving, their hair or clothing might still continue for a moment.
We also compared two animation methods. Pose to pose is where key poses are planned first, followed by extremes, breakdowns, and in-betweens. Straight ahead is more spontaneous, drawing frame by frame in order, which is useful for unpredictable actions. What stood out to me most was the breakdown pose, because it controls the rhythm, direction, and weight of the whole movement.
Week 5
This week was all about clarity. I learned that the audience should always be able to understand what is happening on screen without confusion. Staging is an important part of this. The way the camera angle, lighting, and composition are arranged should make the story point clear. Secondary actions are meant to support the main action, not distract from it. Exaggeration should also feel natural, enhancing reality without breaking it. Anticipation helps prepare the audience for what is about to happen, while follow-through completes the action and makes it believable. We also practiced solid drawing, which includes keeping strong silhouettes, using lines of action, and paying attention to balance. I realized how even small details like avoiding stiff symmetry can make a pose feel more natural and dynamic.
Week 6
This week focused on walk cycles. Mr. Kamal shared that Richard Williams described walking as the foundation of character animation. A standard cycle is built from eight key poses: contact, down, passing, and up for both sides of the body. Walking is basically a process of controlled falling, where the body loses balance and then catches itself again. I noticed how each body part works together.
The arms swing opposite to the legs, the head stays fairly stable, and the feet roll from heel to toe in a natural rhythm. I also realized that walking is not the same for everyone. A heavy step or a light bounce can already show a lot of personality.
Week 7
We studied jumps in detail. A jump has five main stages: anticipation, take-off, airborne, landing, and settling. I learned that jumps always follow an arc. If the path is straight, it immediately looks wrong. Timing plays a big role too.
More frames are usually added for take-off and landing to show weight, while the airborne stage is sometimes stretched longer to give dramatic or funny effects. I found it interesting how jumps can reveal personality.
Week 8
This week introduced the animation workflow. The first step is pre-planning, where I need to know the character’s background, personality, and goals. After that comes thumbnail sketching. These are quick drawings that let me test different ideas and see which ones read clearly. We also practiced using video references. Recording myself or studying real clips helps capture natural movement.
Then comes layout, where backgrounds, proportions, and camera setups are arranged. Blocking is where I put in the key poses, extremes, breakdowns, and later the in-betweens. The final stage is polishing. This includes fixing arcs, adjusting curves in the graph editor, checking that feet and hands stay in contact, and avoiding overlaps or clipping. This process made me realize how much planning and clean-up are required before an animation looks smooth and professional.
Week 10
This week focused on key poses again but in more detail. Key poses show the main action, extreme poses push the movement to its farthest point, and breakdowns connect everything while controlling rhythm and flow. Arcs were once again emphasized as the foundation of believable animation.
We also learned about FK and IK. Forward kinematics uses rotation, which feels natural for swinging motions, while inverse kinematics is about positioning, which is useful when keeping a hand or foot fixed in place. Switching between FK and IK properly is important for keeping movements smooth.
Task_Exercise 1 (Ball rig and ball bouncing frequency)
For this assignment, I need to animate five different balls: soccer, ping pong, bowling, beach ball, and a squash-and-stretch ball.
- Download and test the ball rig.
- Watch some references of how each ball bounces.
- Plan the movement on paper first.
- Focus on the weight and properties of each ball (timing, bounce height, number of bounces).
- Set project to 1280×720, 24fps.
- Animate each ball with proper timing, spacing, arcs, and squash & stretch.
Before starting, the lecturer provided us with a few references for the frequency of ball bouncing, but I also observed some additional videos on my own to make the animation look better.
For the soccer ball, Mr. Kamal showed us how to set keyframes and adjust the graph editor for smoother motion. I changed the rig’s material to look like a soccer ball and animated it based on its elastic bounce. I also watched extra videos to make the movement more accurate.
This one is the bowling ball. I noticed that after it drops, the bounce is not very high, but the detail lies in how it slightly wobbles side to side after landing. So I focused more on capturing that wobbling motion.
As for the beach ball, it is very light, so the bounce is higher and lasts longer compared to the other balls. It also slows down more gradually because of the air inside. Therefore, I paid more attention to making the movement softer and giving it a floaty feeling.
This one is the exercise ball that the lecturer demonstrated in class. It was mainly used to build our basic understanding of ball bounce frequency and timing.
As for the ping pong ball, it is very light and bounces quickly with short intervals. Therefore, I focused on making the timing faster and the bounces sharper to show its lightness.
Task_Exercise 2 (Pendulum Animation)
For this exercise, we used the provided pendulum rig to animate a simple swing. The goal was to show drag, overlapping, and follow-through to make the motion look smoother and more believable.
I first keyed the pendulum root, moving it slightly along the Y-axis. After that, I worked on the cylinder and ball, making sure their movements reacted naturally to the main swing. The focus was on timing, arc, and how the tail followed the main motion with flexibility.
We only worked on pendulum swing exercises. I downloaded the rig file, canceled the key follow-up, and adjusted the swing amplitude of each pendulum joint. After that, I modified the keyframes, refined the curve fluctuations, and adjusted the motion curves. I also created a simple lighting setup and added lighting keyframes.
When everything was complete, I rendered and exported the video. Since the playback was too slow, I doubled the speed for better viewing.
The most challenging part was observing the swing direction and height. The pendulum starts high but gradually loses height over time, which required careful attention. Another challenge was making sure every tail joint was properly keyed missing one meant redoing the section. Despite that, the exercise was fun and just needed patience :)
Task_Exercise 3 (Emotion Pose)
For this exercise, we were asked to find image references of action poses that express four emotions using the Snow Rig: happy, sad, angry, and scared. The focus was on applying line of action, clear silhouettes, weight and balance, contrapposto, and avoiding parallel or twinning poses to make them dynamic and natural.
The task also included creating the character’s expressions for each emotion. I began by studying references and then building the poses and expressions. However, due to my oversight, I didn’t realize we had to find our own references, so I followed the emotional references provided by the lecturer instead.
In Blender, I worked on creating the emotion poses using the Snow Rig. I started by moving the body and adjusting the line of action to match each feeling. For example, I made the pose more open and lifted for happy, while for sad I curved the body down.
After that, I adjusted the arms and legs so the balance looked right and the silhouette was clear. Then I focused on the face, changing the eyes, brows, and mouth to show the emotions more strongly.
The hardest part for me was making sure the poses didn’t look too stiff or too symmetrical, so I had to keep checking and making small changes. Even though it was challenging, it was quite fun to see the
character come to life with different emotions ：）
Scared:
Sad/Depressed?
Feedbacks
Task_Exercise 1 (Ball rig and ball bouncing frequency)
: The ping pong ball needs more bounce, otherwise it looks too much like a basketball. The bowling ball also needs a bit more bounce, the later bounces aren’t very noticeable. If it bounced and rolled around more, the visual effect would look better. The rest is fine.
Task_Exercise 2 (Pendulum Animation)
: The tail swing still feels a bit stiff. You can try adjusting it in the Blender Graph Editor to smooth out the motion.
Task_Exercise 3 (Emotion Pose)
: Where can I see the references for those expressions? I’d like to take a look and make a comparison. For the sad pose, I think the hand could rest on the knee to make it feel more natural, so you could work on that. For the scared pose, the backward lean of the waist isn’t obvious enough, you could emphasize it more by adding a stronger tilt to the shoulders.
Reflection
Observation
From these exercises, I noticed how timing and spacing really affect the believability of the animation. Whether it was the ball bounce, pendulum swing, or character poses, even small adjustments in arcs or overlap made the motion feel more natural and less mechanical.
Experience
While working on the tasks, I found it challenging to control details like the swing direction, height, and follow-through. Sometimes the motion looked stiff or off balance, so I had to go back and refine the keyframes and curves. It took patience, but it also felt rewarding when the movement finally looked smoother.
Findings
I realized that each exercise was not just about movement, but also about learning control and observation. For example, adding more bounces to the ping pong ball or adjusting the shoulder tilt in a pose gave a stronger sense of weight and emotion. These small refinements made me understand how much impact subtle changes can have in animation.
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