Brief:
Individually you are required to produce a short animation film (120 – 180 seconds – depending
on the project) which is based on your own theme and observations. The project should include
aspects covered during the module such as key animation principles and knowledge of lighting
and background design.
This brief shows that there are few restrictions therefor giving me creative freedom when it comes to making the animation.
Research
I looked at marble run / chain reaction videos where one interactions leads to several more and I wanted that to be a theme I could explore when making my animation.
I found lots of videos on Youtube but they are all very similar, so I selected 2 videos that have different characteristics.
Initial Design
I tried recreating a similar scene within Cinema4D with gravity moving the marble along a track that triggers other actions. I played around with this scene some more but I couldn’t get a result that I was happy with so I discontinued it.
Step Ball Machine
For this animation the ball climbs up the steps by each step elevating upwards and then it dropping onto the next step and then repeats the process.
I originally wanted the ball to go up the steps then to fall onto a slide that takes it back towards the bottom of the steps and then repeats. However I couldn’t manage to make a slide that spirals while being a smooth spline/line.
So as a workaround I created two steps with a pit that catches the ball and sends it back up the opposite steps.
I wanted to keep the colour scheme of two main colours throughout the animation so all the scenes fit into one visual style.
Galton Board
I found the idea of a Galton Board from this youtube video. A Galton Board is a mathematical device invented by Sir FrancisGalton to demonstrate the central limit theorem, in particular that the normal distribution is approximate to the binomial distribution.
By looking at the image it shows the entry point of the balls that falls onto cylinders positioned into a pyramid formation. The balls then fall into chambers which sorts the balls into an order.
I decided to hide the chambers at the bottom and use the wood texture as a visual bounding box for the assortment of the metal balls.
After doing a mathematical animation I decided to in cooperate more physics and maths based animations using rigid body dynamics.
Newton’s Cradle
For this animation I modelled the famous Newton’s Cradle. A Newton’s cradle is a device that demonstrates conservation of momentum and energy using a series of swinging spheres.
I created the cradle by using a connector objects and giving the sphere a dynamic tag. I duplicated the sphere and the connector points 4 more times and moved them along the cradle model.
I added cylinders to the connector and positioned the spheres .5cm apart from each other.
After lighting and texturing the animation to fit in with the same visual style as the rest.
The second sequence of the Newton Cradle is the metal balls having a soft body dynamic tag. This makes the metal balls soft and squishy as apposed to been hard and rigid. This juxtaposition of characteristics gives the animation humour, however, the texture on the metal balls is very reflective, which does not show the shadows and indents that the spheres make on each other.
As you can see in the photo the balls gets massively deformed but however when rendered it does not show as much.
Penrose Triangle
The Penrose or Impossible Triangle is an object that cant exist in ordinary euclidean space. The way we perceive the Penrose triangle is looking at it at a certain perspective.
To the left shows an image of a Penrose triangle. Interestingly if you walk around the side faces of a penrose triangle, you will walk around the whole object.
Similarly to the Penrose Triangle, a Mobius Strip, a ribbon that has been cut and then twisted has the same properties as the triangle.
To start making the triangle, the only way I would be able to design it in a standard 3D application such as Cinema4D is to use perspective.
Using the isometric view point this gives me the perfect perspective to fake the Penrose Triangle.
I made the triangle by using multiple cubes.
Here is the finished triangle, and the same triangle but not in the isometric viewing angle.
Here is the triangle textured and lighted to fit the same visual style. My plan with this animation was to have the metal ball round around all the faces to show that all the faces are connected similar to that of a mobius strip.
Metal Ball Slide
The last animation wasn’t based on maths or physics devices, instead just a track the metal ball follows and interacts with using rigid body dynamics. This animation took the most inspiration from the first initial research videos.
The ball starts at the top of the ramp and works it way down with gravity which eventually leads to the slide and then the bouncing pad which shoots it onto another ramp out of shot and then back onto the pad.
I originally wanted this scene to be very intricate which leads to multiple other contraptions, however there is a bug in Cinema4D involving collider and rigid bodies. It gets to a point where whenever you add a large object that has dynamic properties it adjusts the cached data of the sphere which ends up breaking the movement of the animation. Its hard to explain but it is a verified bug with cinema4D. See here, for more infomation regarding the bug.
I tried adding other objects into the scene but the bug prevented me from doing so so I had to leave the animation at the state it was in.
I textured and lit the scene appropriately and set the camera angle to isometric which gave the animation a cute cartoon-ish look which I decided to keep.
Audio
For information of the Audio please visit Lighting and Sound: Photography
Final Animation
Reflection
My time during this brief has made me aware of the importance of time management. Although the final animation was an interesting piece and featured new techniques I previously had not used, with more effective time management I could have produced a higher quality animation. Initially, I would have been able to explore more research paths which would have ultimately resulted in a stronger idea. Furthermore, even though I feel that the way I produced my audio was creative and resulted in an appropriate sounding track, with more time dedicated to this the audio could have had a higher fidelity. Im happy with some of the animations such as the Penrose Triangle, as it was something challenging to create and the outcome was visually interesting. While on the other hand I feel the weaker animations were the Galton Board and the Newtons Cradle. The Galton Board worked well but its a very simple idea and device which did not give me much room to play with. With the Newtons cradle I couldn’t get the dynamic interactions perfect. Cinema4D must struggle with dynamic solving when trying to keep inertia.
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