#omar animation

Bouncing Ball Part 3

After finding some ball references, mainly for the ping pong ball, I set about making my first test animation. After my 1st and 2nd Maya lectures I had learnt the very (very) basic methods of key frame ball animation in Maya. (It was so confusing at first though, I miss flash and after effects). Anyway, after creating Test animation #1 I thought about other methods of making the ball have more fluid motion.

Using the "Shape" tool and keyframing in After Effects, I quickly ran through a few basic 2D bouncing ball principles, so that when I mirror the potion in Maya, I will encounter less mistakes in timing.

Ball#1 motion 2 from Shadid Muhammad on Vimeo.

I started with a red ball bouncing across the screen, then I added some squash and stretch to the motion.

Ball#1 motion 3 from Shadid Muhammad on Vimeo.

I experimented with different balls of varying speeds and weights, eventually adding more hard surfaces for the balls to bounce off and featuring the 2 balls that I plan to animate in Maya, a Ping Pong and Bowling ball.

Ball#1 motion 4 from Shadid Muhammad on Vimeo.

This is a short animation I did over the summer for Quincy Comics

For our first Life drawing session, we were told to draw using techniques we normally use, with various time constants.....so that is what I did.....duh! 

10 mins (I'm not going to pretend that these are my best sketches) 

3 mins 

2 mins (getting faster...and scrappier)  

1 min / 30 secs (Such fast...Much messy)

Witches at their Incantations By Salvator Rosa

(A trip to the National Gallery)

Salvator Rose, an Italian poet, produced this gruesome and visually amazing painting during his years in Florence from (1640-9). Due to the superstitious view of the time, scenes like this, depicting Witches, the Occult and other hard to press subjects of the time were very rare.

The painting depicts witches spell casting in the center if the painting, underneath a man hanging from an old tree. The brightly illuminated foreground contrasts with the dark and shadowed landscape behind.

Visually the scene is very hard to split into sections, I think this is why the painting was so successfully. Like the gears of a car or a line of dominos, each subject and action leads to another, drawing the views eyes across the scene, encouraging them to examine every detail of the scene, of which there are many.

Colour wise, the painting emits mainly dark tones, this is in conjunction with the scene's dark subject and depictions. These dark colours make the painting seem cold and depressing. However there is a hint of what could be sunrise in the top left, suggesting that this gruesome scene is at an end.

Rosa uses light much like a play uses light, highlighting every important part of the scene and emphasizing others such as the pale skin of the naked subjects in the middle if the frame. The subject and lighting are reminiscent of Shakespeare's Macbeth, specifically Act 1 Scene 3, when the witches deliver their prophecy to Macbeth. I like to imagine that this is how the scene may have looked, Rosa may actually have been inspired by Shakespeare's work; both of the covered the same controversial a rarely depicted subject of the time.

The BBC Macbeth Animated film released in 1992 could have used this painting as a reference for it dark and Gothic visuals, taking inspiration from a painting of the same subject matter, created at a similar time to the plays original publish date. A screen is displayed above.

It seems like each time you look at the painting, you notice something new, a minor detail that makes the scene more real, yet more bizarre at the same time. The painting toys with the views imagination, featuring every object or visual element that has connotations of witchcraft, mystery and spirits, such as voodoo dolls, bones and corpses. The fact that this scene can still install those same connotations in a modern audience is a nod to how entrenched witchcraft is to western culture and it's history. Rosa contemporary audience would have viewed this painting with mixture of fear and wonder, it's small size transformed the scene into a window to another world, or possible a window that simply depicts the outside world for what it is. The one of a kind monsters depicted in the painting could bring light to many interesting character designs.

Bouncing Ball Part 2 

For the Bowling ball I referenced live action footage from Youtube and also some clips for the animated TV show Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, episode: The Big Lablooski. The animation is quite exaggerated and it is only 1 second long but it may still come in useful.

Bouncing ball (an introduction to Maya)

  The aim of this project is to create 2 bouncing ball animations test in the 3D modeling software Maya. The 2 ball must have a contrasting weights and also sides. The 2 types of ball I have decided depict are a Ping Pong ball, for its lightness and bouncing style on solid surfaces, and a Bowling ball for is rigidity and interaction with solid surfaces when dropped.

Before I started the animation process, I had to find references to how the 2 different balls bounced. I was very interested in Ping Pong ball trick shots such as bouncing the ball of the floor then the wall and into a cup. This fast change in direction while bouncing may make the animation more appealing. For references I went to Youtube to find video that my help me.

  Other Ping Pong Ball reference videos: *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6I3JI4vJv0 *https://www.youtube.com/watch?