Pose to Pose Animation Task: Part One, Pendulum Animation.

At some point this week we were taught about Pose to Pose animation and were given the task of creating two animations using this technique. The first we were to create was a pendulum swinging, and this was to get us to think about timing, as well as easing in and out.

Before I got started I decided to plan out my animation. The pendulum would pick up momentum and then lose it as it reached the end of it's swing, and then the same thing would happen as it swung back to it's original position. I have demonstrated this by the dashes on the arc that it will swing along, each dash being a different frame. The larger spaces between the dashes shows the pendulum gaining momentum, and the loss of this momentum is shown by these spaces getting closer together.

On the first swing there will be 12 frames (one second of animation as I am working at 12 FPS) but on the way back there shall only be 10. This is because frame 12 and 1/23 don't repeat on the swing back as when the sequence is looped it shall hang for longer than is necessary. If I wasn't to loop the sequence though, I would draw frame 1/23 again so the sequence would be complete.

I used Acme punched paper on a peg board to draw my animation and I really enjoyed using it. It makes a nice change from having to cut up tracing paper and stick each individual sheet to the table using masking tape, like what I did to create my Art Foundation animations. This method was so much more convenient, as it meant I didn't have to mess around sizing my paper and then peeling of masking tape without ripping my frames. It also meant that my frames were perfectly aligned so I didn't have to spend time lining up my images as I photographed/scanned them, or digitally using Photoshop. This also allowed for a very smooth final piece. My pendulum doesn't seem to jump around at all, and the point from which it is swing from seems to be fixed in the same place, which is great.

Overall I think I've done quite well with this task. The pendulum seems to hang for just the right amount of time, but if I were to do it again I think it would be nice to see it pick up more speed. I could do this by making the spaces between each frame larger, or I could simply extend the rope of the pendulum. I could even make the circle smaller to give the illusion of the gaps being larger. It might be nice to see what the GIF would have looked like if I had edited the background as well because at the moment you can see the creases in the paper that I have worked on. I personally quite like this, but it would still be nice to see a "clean" animation to compare to.