Animation 101: Arcs/ Pendulums

Oct 28, 2016 For this week's animation 101 task, we were challenged with recreating the motion of a pendulum, which is linked to the principle of Arcs. Arcs Most natural action tends to follow an arched trajectory, and animation should adhere to this principle by following implied "arcs" for greater realism. This technique can be applied to a moving limb by rotating a joint, or a thrown object moving along a parabolic trajectory, (in our case a swinging pendulum). Like always, I set up my stop motion booth. This time, I positioned my camera at a higher point of view, as this would be the best vantage point for displaying the motion.

After I had that set up, I drew out a guide for my animation on this bar sheet.

(UPDATE: this was the bar sheet I used in the second attempt of the pendulum task *see at the bottom of the page*)

I used a 30cm ruler as my guide for the distance from my block to the central, pivotal point.

Trying my best to follow the laws of gravity that I had seen in reference videos the below video was my result: (This video was the best quality I could find that had a basic guide... my actual animation was a lot shorter. Perhaps weight could be studied further to make my block oscillate more in future animations).

Over all I was pleased with this outcome.

I then took the video into Maya to demonstrate the animation further. (this went against the advice of trying the Maya animation before the stop motion. But I also felt that trying out the physical animation really helped me AND FORCED me to understand the motion I was dealing with.) I altered the graph editor (to add more ease in and ease out to each oscillation).

UPDATE: On review it was advised to me that I make my stop motion animation longer when I next tackle this task. This coincides with how I personally felt that my block should be studied as if it had more weight. I'm excited to see how this turns out. *UPDATED VERSION* Here is the result of my second and final attempt of the pendulum task:

I was much more pleased with this result as it coincided a lot more with my reference video, and the greater amount of ocillations over a longer amount of time certainly provided a more realistic outcome.