Today we used replacement animation to make paper transform from one shape to another. I was going from a square to a circle and I wanted to be a little ambitious with it, making the shape turn into something else before it became a circle. I decided to have the square sink into the table and turn into an ocean wave before disappearing again and rising up as a circle.

It took me a bit of time to figure out the anatomy of wave, and in hindsight I could have used a reference instead of judging it by eye. But I think I still managed to create the illusion I was trying to, mostly. One thing I’d tried to convey was that the square, once it has disappeared beneath the surface, ‘swims’ along a bit, unseen, before emerging again as a wave. It didn’t quite look right though, so the tutor recommended using an eye-trace next time. So if I were to do it again, I’d have maybe a tiny dot of paper moving across the surface of the table to indicate the movement underneath, as if the square hasn’t totally submerged.

I think next time I would also plan out my frames a bit more before cutting them out, to have an idea of how many I’ll need. That would facilitate for more precise changes in speed as well, because it would be easier to add or take away frames between keyframes at the planning stage rather than the cutting out and animation stages.