Topic 5: Overlap and Straight Ahead Animation

For the final topic, we were given three tasks that tackle the leaning concepts of follow through, overlapping action, drag, timing, spacing, arcs and straight ahead animation. Task 1 had us use follow through and overlapping action to animate a pendulum swinging from screen left to screen right and to its original position. Task 2 had us demonstrate our understanding of follow through and overlapping action by animating a ball with a tail bouncing on the spot. For task 3, we were to use our bouncing ball rig from topic 4 and solve how a tail would move while the ball jumped over a gap. 

Follow Through 

Follow through is a key animation principle which explains that loosely connected parts of a character or object will continue moving once that character or object has stopped.

Overlapping Action

Overlapping action is a similar concept that describes how different appendages tend to move at different rates. 

Follow through and overlapping action are key animation principles when creating realistic scenes as, said in the book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation, “Things don’t come to a stop all at once, guys; first there’s one part and then another". When a character with floppy ears jumps, their ears don't stay in the same spot, the have a fluid motion wth different parts of the ear moving at different rates. 

Task 1:

To start, I mapped out how I wanted the pendulum to move from screen left to screen right and then back to it's original position.

I then went on to add some movement to the pendulum itself. I created key poses of how far I wanted the pendulum to swing once its direction had changed. I made sure to include the overlapping action of the pendulum continuing to swing while the top has already changed direction. By doing this it seems the bottom of the pendulum doesn't move or stop moving until the top of it causes it to by dragging it in another direction.  A problem I identified however is that as the pendulum begins it's first movement, the bottom of the chain kicks out and moves before being pulled along. 

To fix this error, I made sure the centre of the bottom of the pendulum did not kick out to the left and did cross the starting point until it was dragged along by the rest of the pendulum. At this stage the animation is still quite robotic and unnatural looking, this is because the pendulum changes direction in unison while a real pendulum would move at varying rates with the top moving first and dragging the lower parts behind it.

By adding breakdowns in between each of the key poses the animation looks much more natural and adheres to follow through and overlapping action a lot better, making for a better animation.

Task 2:

To start task 2, I animated the ball to jump how I wanted it to. The jump looks good but the tail is very stiff and has no movement.

To make the ball's tail have more life and movement I animated it to have overlapping action and follow through. The tail now curls downwards when the ball is moving upwards and curls upwards when the ball is falling. This makes it seem as if the tail is dragging behind the ball. Although this makes sense, each joint of the tail, just like the pendulum, moves in sync whereas a real tail would start moving at the base and the rest would be dragged behind and move at varying rates. 

To create a realistic and fluid movement for the tail, I added in-betweens to make sure the joints of the ball's tail move at varying rates. This makes it seem as if the base of the tail has changed direction while the tip is still being effected by drag.

Task 3: 

Task 3 was to use topic 4's animation of a ball jumping over a gap and solve how a tail attached to the ball character would move. To create this animation I combined all the principles and practices I learnt from the previous tasks. 

I animated the ball's tail so it would have overlapping action and follow through. By having the tail's joints move at varying times the tail looks more realistic and as if parts of the tail are changing direction while others are still being affected by drag.

Reflection: 

After completing topic 5 and animating with follow through and overlapping action in mind, I learnt that these key principles of animation are crucial when animating. As said in the book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation, “Things don’t come to a stop all at once, guys; first there’s one part and then another". By animating objects and characters with follow through and overlapping action, their movement becomes much more believable and is if things like loose clothes or floppy ears are affected by their own weight and the movement of the character. These principles allow for much more realistic and fluid animation.