Project 4:Balloon with String

Once you are happy with your balloon's movement and it really moves like a balloon, it time to add a little something called "Follow Thru". You have hopefully learned how to inbetween from Key pose to pose for the balloon, but now its time to animate using the Straight ahead method by animating a string on a balloon.

When your balloon moves it effects the string which is behind it. Below are two examples of the wave action which is from Richard Williams' The Animators Survival Kit and...

from Timing for Animation by Harold Whitaker and John Halas.

 

Here's what Richard Williams has to say about animating a whip or wave action.

  

These examples may be a little extreme to use for the tail, but you can adjust your string drawings by restricting the amount of movement. Once you are tested the string motion, you can redraw the string positions on each balloon, when its flying along. The tail or wave action can be repeated over and over in a cycle.

Here is a demo on how to draw a wave action for a balloon string. Again if the motion of the string is too broad, you must reduce the distance the string travels. Let me know if this is helpful or not.

BalloonString from Toondini on Vimeo.

Project 4: Balloon Motion

Here's demo of Constant motion and Ease In and Out timing. Remember, the faster you want the balloon to travel, the more spacing you need to add between your drawings. If you want the balloon to move slower, the less space between drawings.

If you only have a fast motion to slower motion to fast with no ease ins or outs, your balloon animation may look like this.

It will have an odd jerk from one speed to the next. An easy fix is to find the last drawing of the balloon moving quickly and the first drawing of the slower balloon movement and make 3 inbetween drawings to create an Ease In. The timing chart would look like this, notice how the spacing is reduced thru B5 and B9.

If your animation moves too quickly, you can always add more inbetween drawings to smooth out the motion.

Once you have the animation drawings, pencil test them by shooting each drawing on 2s (2 frames). This will show you how your animated balloon is moving. If a fast part are not moving as fast as you like them, you can go back a reshoot those drawings on 1s (1 frame). Or if you want to slow down the balloon parts that are moving slowly, you can shoot a few drawings on 3s, maybe even 4s. This will slow down the balloon and increase time during this section.

It's a good idea to write down how your drawing numbers which are based on your pencil test by filling out an exposure sheet. An exposure sheet (also known as an X sheet or Dope sheet) records how your animation was shot in frames, what field was it shot at, any camera moves or other levels of animation like a Background or other elements.

Use a pencil when filling out this sheet, because you might decide to change or add drawings later. If filled out correctly, you could have anyone shoot your animation as long as they had the artwork and knew how to read the X sheet information. Student tend to forget about the exposure sheet process and then spend all their time wondering what frames to shoot at or trying to remember how they shot the animation a week ago.
From: Richard Williams book...

NEXT: Adding a string your balloon.

Project 4: Balloon Layout and Timing Charts

Project 4: Balloon or Bubble is designed to teach a few more animation techniques as inbetweening, timing, and ease ins & outs.  

Below is a layout drawing to show the path of motion as well as the Key drawings and the inbetweens. You only want your Key drawings on this layout and not draw every single balloon position on the Layout drawing. This shows the circled Keys, the underlined breakdowns and the inbetweens and how the variety of spacing creates different types of movement.

Constant Motion is represented by B1 thru B5. The balloon enters going an even amount of speed. Notice the spacing is very even and the same. This is what the information looks like as a timing chart.

 

An Ease In is represented by B5 thru B9, the motion begins quickly and slows down gradually to the next Key drawing.

 

An Ease Out is not represented in the layout above, but its the opposite of an Ease In. The Motion begins slowly and then gains speed.

The above chart shows how B13 slowly moves to 14, 15 is further away from 13 and 16 is the breakdown and right in the middle of B13 and B17.

BALLOONTiming from Toondini on Vimeo.

Here's a way to think about the above concepts of timing, think about a stopped car.

NEXT: Making the Balloon move like a balloon.