During our 4 modules this trimester, we will explore animation in the program Houdini. Our task will be to present our progress during the creation of our explainer video. The video will be around 30 seconds, explaining the 5 principles of animation.

Week 1: Mood Board

Here is my mood board. I have chosen a smooth matte colour scheme. I like the gentle lighting that it gives overall. 

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Exercise 1: Create an Opening scene.

This exercise we are task to use Houdini to create a simple scene. This scene will have a simple animation with lighting and text.

Simple layout so far. I decided to make the text 3D for no reason.

Test Render: I rendered it close up, so I can see the details up close. I don't like how sharp and dark the shadows are currently, will change later. I later increased the roughness of the materials and decreased the reflection. Now it has a smooth matte finish.

I feel the animation should be a bit faster. The cube probably should not be intersecting with the text. Maybe put on an angle, so there is more depth. 

Exercise 2: Anticipation

I was trying out some new lighting and materials to be used in the scene. This scene uses the letter "I" in Anticipation. The letter hops across the screen, then stops revealing the rest of the word for anticipation. 

Here is a general idea on how the final animation should go. I want the animation to feel seamless between each scene. 

Scene 1: Opening Screen

A simple scene with Animation Principles falling down and a cube bouncing across the screen. I used the same scene as previous, but I change the light to an Environment Light. Using a HDR, I was able to get a smooth lighting with gentle shadows. This is the intended effect that I wanted to use.

I start constructing the layout and colours that I will be using for the scene. The cube will be falling onto the platform from the previous scene. Then a green ball will roll into the scene, the two shapes will show different version of timing and spacing. 

I added an emission material as a stripe on the ball, so you can now tell when the ball rolls. I'm not sure how I feel about it though. It doesn't fit the overall aesthetic and theme.

The timing felt if bit off so I adjusted it. I added a button for additional effect. I also changed the title colour to match the Opening Screen color.

Following the scene from before, the ball rolls in. It will take both the elevators up on to the next scene. This scene featuring Ease In and Out. The ball will slowly build up speed for ease in and slow down for the ease out.

The ball is now on a platform, it gets ready to fall down the ramp and into the hole. The ball with tilt back and forth to simulating Anticipation. Then it will proceed to fall and roll towards the hole for Follow Through. 

Blocking out the path the ball with go.

This scene the ball will continue falling through the hole from the previous scene. The ball will bounce off the ramp and continue to bounce for another 2-3 times. Hopefully I will be able to have the word "Arcs" following behind the ball like trail. 

The render turned out a lot darker than the rest due to it having a ceiling. This will be the only scene with a roof. I was contemplating on having only half a roof. The word "Arcs" as a trail didn't turn out as well as I thought it would. The bounce wasn't big enough for the trail to look good. 

In this scene the ball encounters stairs, on which now must bounce up the stairs. The bouncing should demonstrate the squash and stretch principle.

The final scene, the ball has reached its final stop. The ball is destroyed. I tried to quickly learn some simple destruction physics. I think I spent about 3 hours to troubleshooting and tweaking till I got the right amount of destruction. The pieces was chunky enough to see and didn't fly all over the place.