Post 47 –Bounce that Ball
Well, I thought I had a bit longer in between courses, but opps, apparently not. This week actually starts Week ONE of Adam’s Animation Academy, Moho Magic Animation Course, with Dani Abrams, Moho Ambassador. So, we’ll have to wait on the bonus section of the Moho Magic Rigging Course until later.
Since this week’s class is introducing workflow for proper animators, I rewatched the bouncing ball animation taught by the iconic Aaron Blaise. Even though it’s frame-by-frame, it’s still a great resource for studying timing, squash, and stretch.
Things to Know:
✔ What, when, and why use Step Keys
Week One
Week one covers what animators need to know for their workflow: project settings, menus, vectors, keys, breakdowns, in-betweens, exporting an animation, and more.
Dani uses a bouncing ball to demonstrate what Moho can do. Because, as Aaron Blaise said, “everything is a bouncing ball.”
“Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”
Step Keys
So, to state the obvious I am not an animator, which means some of the most obvious things are often a revelation to me. One little thing that we covered this week are step keys.
Normally, when you put down two keyframes, Moho fills in the movement between them. It creates that nice, smooth transition for you. But, step keys are different. They hold the value or position until the next keyframe, then jump instantly.
No tweening. No in-between.
Why use them?
Pose to Pose Animations: Step keys are useful when you’re figuring out poses and timing. You can set a pose, hold it, and then jump straight to the next pose without Moho filling in movement. Then the in-betweens, and finally you finesse.
Camera cuts: They’re also handy for anything that needs to happen instantly, like a hard camera cut or making an object suddenly appear.
How to Create Step Keys
For all keyframes:
- Change the interpolation setting at the beginning of your work.
- Select Step from the dropdown menu.
Or, for a single keyframe:
- Select the keyframe on your timeline.
- Right-click the keyframe.
- Choose Step from the interpolation menu.
Step keys: stay right there until told otherwise.
Anne Lamott said in an interview, “ I’ve been doing this professionally for 45-years, and when I sit down to write, I’m never in the mood. I don’t wait for inspiration. My dad was a writer. He taught me that you sit down at the same time every day. You do it as a habit. You do it by prearrangement with yourself as a debt of honor. Because no one cares if you write, no one cares.” Anne Lamott
This week was a busy week, life happened. So my Friday, debt of honor post feels a bit lacking. But I did bounce balls this week, too many balls, my balls would stick, my balls would jump instead of bounce, they would flatten, they would loose volume, gain volume, and basically do all number of things but bounce. In fact, getting my balls to stay bouncy, springy, and relatively the same size was a much bigger challenge than one would think.
Post 47 — Afterthoughts
Maybe I should probably be more pleased with my progress. But instead, I just want more. More knowledge. More skill. More animation. More, more, more.
Sometimes, I find myself asking, What’s the hurry? Where exactly are you going? You’re learning. Learning really does take time.
As someone who studied instructional design, I know this. Learning isn’t usually about hearing something once and magically knowing how to do it. It takes practice, repetition, making mistakes, getting feedback, trying again, and giving your brain a little time to put all those pieces together. And yet, here I am, impatient with myself for not knowing more already. 😂
Taking it bird by bird…
or bounce by bounce. 🐦⚽ Nik
