Process
First, we create keyframes using the "S" key on different extremes/poses in the animation.
Now obviously this isn't the best animation in the world yet. The ball is travelling to our intended positions in to each extremes/poses, but right now it feels more like the ball is going on a roller coaster ride than getting affected by gravity and bouncing off the ground naturally. This is the default path that Maya gives to us immediately after we set key frames.
In order to fix that problem, we have to ensure that when it lands, it lands sharply, and not slowly descending onto the ground and slowly ascending up. To do that, we will have to modify the points for the curve.
Each point on the curve has two tangents. The angle of the tangent to the point will determine how steep the curve is. In other words, the tangents can help us modify the shapes of the curves on the left and right side of the point. The "Break Tangents" tool was used because originally, moving one tangent will cause the other tangent to move together with it, even if the other tangent wasn't selected. With the "Break Tangents" tool, I was able to do modification on the intended tangent without screwing up anything else.
I also found out that the move, rotate, and scale tool (our favourite W, E, R keys) do work in the graph editor as well! Just activate the tool we want, and we can perform the operations by selecting points/tangents with the Left Mouse Button, and moving/rotating/scaling the selected stuff with the Middle Mouse Button.
The scale tool also allow us to scale on a specific horizon. So if I scale inwards, the points will move towards the horizon, and if I scale outwards, the points will move away from the horizon.
Scaling is important in this lab because we didn't have reference for the timing of the bouncing, so it ended up being too long and we have to scale it down to make it move faster and more natural.
Another important thing was that the top extremes/poses/points were kind of unnecessary, because the tangents given to us is sufficient to describe the curve. So it was recommended in the tutorial to delete them and move the tangents of the existing points to compensate the missing top extremes/poses/points. Deleting sounds bad, but if done properly, such as in this scenario, it can save us processing power without losing a drop in quality.
The last thing to do before we are done with the tutorial is the removal of static channels. Static channels are attributes that have the same value throughout the entire animation. In other words, their curve on the graph editor is straight, and their values never change. So it is a waste of memory and processing power to store and compute things that will never change. So these things, or static channels, should be removed. It was done by doing Edit -> Delete by Type -> Static Channels. We also end up with a cleaner graph since the two curves (translate X and translate Y) is all we ever need for this animation.
Last but not least is to actually render the final animation into a video. This was done using Windows -> Playblast. I managed to record the animation from three different views. Here's the video:
Reflection
This is the first lab exercise where I get some hands on with doing animation in Maya. It is not difficult compared to Pencil, but it definitely takes some time to get used to the animation tools. This exercise also allow me to see how I can improve my animations. Each step in the tutorial is doing just that. From the roller-coaster path to this final naturally bouncing ball path, and the adjustment of speeds using the scale tool were the solution to some of those flaws.
Eventually, it comes to the point where it is very difficult for me to see whatever tweaks that I can do to this animation. I guess that as I start to do more animation, and practice more, when I come back to this animation one day, I would be able to spot more flaws by then.
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