4/22/10 Class

12:20-2:35 PM

1. Opened the ball file and changed the values a few times, making previews to check; the ending values are: X&Z: 1.25, .95...etc.,Y: .85, 1...etc.
2. The problem of the day was a matter of size and angle, when I merged the ball file into the scenery file the ball was the same size as the trees and 90 degrees out of place
3. Solution for the problem: Enlarge the scene (trees and all) and rotate the set-up 90 degrees to the right
4. Now I modified the placement of the trees; and the tree that the ball stops by I enlarged and shifted off to the side while moving 2 other trees to fill in large gaps in the center of the scene
5. The light (although I really didn't want to change it) had to be modified in order to increase the amount of light; I tested different effects be decided that I was just going to make the light bigger so that way I didn't have to tweak too much and lose the effect that I was going for, and I had to shift its position to be a bit higher and off to the right
6. I'm typing this as the scene is rendering  and it just finished now at about 3:05 PM so it took around a half hour, give or take.

Note: I have files saved to the hard drive and as soon as I finish this post I'm going to put them into my folder on this computer #14

plans for 4/22

1. Figure out the exact values for the squash and stretch of the ball
2. Merge the file into the scene I've already created
3. And if possible do a preview, then a test of the animated scene

Class 4/20/10 tuesday

12:30-3:00 PM

1. Presented my alpha ball bounce sequence to Blyth
2. It needed a more realistic bounce to it, the physics were off and needed to be corrected
3. Looked at an example of ball bouncing from an ad 
4. Looked for a picture sample displaying the physics behind ball bouncing. Blyth found some sites and emailed the links for them to my Montserrat account (I haven't been on a computer since tuesday, so I haven't gotten to look at them yet)
5. With the physics of the ball bounce there were two samples, one in which the height was the only thing that decreased, the other: both the height and the distance it landed each time decreased (that was the one that I had been trying to replicate)
6. Blyth and I set up a spline but it wouldn't quite complete the task, it was discovered that it would probably be easier to animate the shape especially when Blyth had found a function in the timeline window that allowed for alterations could be made by changing the display to its graph function
7. Blyth had figured out the math, which frames to set the motion to starting with the addition of 15 and have the number decay by for each cycle
8. Once the frames were figured out I set it up on my computer with the starting height being 1 block (ten squares) and base width being  1 block; the pattern: height decrease by 1, base width decrease by 1/2 a square.
9. The squash and stretch was rather funny to start working on; I had put the values into the wrong places the ZX were supposed to be the same values at the same interval and Y the opposite value, I've fixed that but the values input into the animation need to be altered so that the gravity with the 3d ball that I'm using comes out so that its regular sized when its at full height on each arc and squashed at its landing point at the base

Outside of Class 4/20/10

10:30 AM - 12:30 PM

1. Increased the width of the plane in Scenery_4_20.c4d
2. Went into detail on the ball bounce alpha file in c4d > played it > realigned animation spline > played > tweaked the spline again > Shorted the length of the animation to approx. 140 frames > Rendered 3 tests that took about 2 minutes each after making adjustments
3. Opened up garageband and recorded ball bounce sounds and toyed with the effects and tried to get the sound right despite not having an actual rubber ball. The sound was to help me get the bounce right
4. Saved all updated files with date to flash drive and went to class

Really Late Post for the Visiting Artist: Joel Frenzer

I had come into his discussion in the middle of the first clip that was being shown with the little boy and the tiger.
When he said that the sound for this animation had actually been a sound test for script that his ex-wife and he and written I was rather surprised. Though as I thought about it the idea seemed to make sense to me especially when I thought about the times when I had a camera running and my family would do improv, it was so much smoother than giving roles to play.
I liked the way that he would set a simple goal for himself and complete it in the most interesting way; although plans are good to have they don't always follow thru exactly as scheduled so there are less disappointments.

Now, hearing from someone who has used the Final Cut program I really would like to give it a try but after looking around at price tags I don't think that I'll be getting it for a while.