Monday 2nd October 2023

After using the workshop support session to finalise the movement of the circle and pentagon and map the movement of the star, my plan for today was to animate the star bouncing off the pentagon. However, I couldn’t figure out how to make it squash in the right way as the two shapes collide, so I switched to having it fall straight down behind the circle and pentagon, and then rock side to side when it hits the ground. The comedy element would be in the fact that the pentagon only narrowly missed being hit by the star. But I couldn’t get this to look right either. The rocking looked more intentional than as a result of the falling momentum.

So I have changed the star to a square, so at least any the squash and stretch part feels more doable, and now I’m taking a break until tomorrow because if I carry on in this frustrated mood, it’ll just feel impossible.

Tuesday 3rd October

Today I animated the square bouncing off the pentagon. There were a few things to consider when doing this, because it moves, squashes, stretches and changes direction in just a few frames. Because of that, I had to manipulate it at every frame when it meets the pentagon, otherwise it would overlap or leave gaps when the two shapes are supposed to be touching.

I wanted to make the square accelerate as it falls towards the pentagon, but every time I changed something at that part of the sequence, the other frames for the collision would go wrong again. If I had more time I would try to make it work, but I wanted to have a complete piece for the tomorrow, even if it’s imperfect.

I also added sound to the sequence, in the form of a comedic “boing” for the collision and a slide whistle for the falling and flying of the square. My plan was for the pitch of the whistle to match the square’s movement, but I found that the pitch going up for the down movement and down for the up movement worked well. It creates a bit of a sense of the square being fastest just before and just after hitting the pentagon, without me having to change the animation.