Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Rotating Cube

This is a 'pencil test' of a cube rotating in space - a short exercise I created for myself. The main point was to freehand the drawings and try to keep the perspective correct as the cube rotates. The inbetweens were done from key poses and breakdowns to help me line up the angles correctly.

This was the first animation I've posted that was created in Toon Boom Studio. The rotating disc feature was invaluable!




Please click the '>' button to play the animation.

To help with my sense of timing and patience, I'm going to do a few more ball bounce exercises before moving onto some character animation exercises. As I wrote previously, my animation library has grown considerably. Two books that I'm working from that include good exercises and explanations are Mechanics Of Motion and Character Animation in 3D (this book actually has good 2D exercises, I'll be skipping the 3D stuff for now).

2 comments:

Jerry Keslensky said...

Jimmy,
I think you are ready to tackle the flour sack. Check the BTF blog for an article I wrote about this great exercise. Also check on the TGRS site under How to.. where I posted some pencil tests on a flour sack character. This is a great way to focus on learning to deal with weight and forces and is great fun. The skin of the sack is the form but it is your understanding of the weight of the flour inside as it shifts about and the effects of the forces produced by those shifts that you will be animating and just using the skin as a way to show the effects. You also can incorporate your knowledge of turning a form in perspective as you animate the flour sack keeping it 3D looking.

Jimmy said...

JK, thanks for your feedback! I'll head over to your site and study the info on the flour sack. That animation seems beyond my abilities but I won't know for sure unless I try! Do you suggest that I try to copy your pencil tests? Thanks again!