Refining the Ball with Tail Blocking
This week, we continued with our work on the Ball with Tail animation, picking up from last week’s progress by focusing on converting our Block Out animations into Spline animations. We kicked off with a critique session, where we received initial feedback on our Block Out animations, helping me pinpoint areas for improvement.
Following the critique, we resumed our work and learned how to transform Block Out animations into Spline. After the conversion, we utilised the Graph Editor to refine the animations and correct the ball’s trajectory using the Motion Trail feature. This allowed us to make subtle adjustments to the ball’s path, enhancing the realism of the jump and making it look smoother than the blocking. I also learned to fine-tune the Translate Y graph in the Graph Editor, incorporating ease-in and ease-out effects to give the jump a more natural feel.
In terms of the tail animation, I made slight modifications in the Graph Editor to smooth out its movement. I also cleaned up on the rotations to make it follow the right curvature while it is in motion. We learned about managing keyframes, focusing on how to delete any extra keyframes at the end of the animation process. This keeps the Graph Editor neat and easy to use. It’s important to remove these extra keyframes only after completing the animation so that nothing changes while we’re still working.
This week, I adhered to the planning I developed last week and successfully converted my Block Out animation into Spline. By leveraging the Graph Editor, I was able to add ease-in and ease-out effects, while the Motion Trail helped me enhance the ball’s bounce distance and trajectory. I made several additional adjustments to ensure that the animation of the ball with the tail appeared more fluid and realistic. This is my version of Ball with Tail: