3. Self-Critique

Discuss the success of your animation.

Also discuss how you applied the principles of animation, with examples.

Note: a good critique of a poor animation can still gain marks.

The animation that I have done makes use of some of the principles of animation.

The first principle would be the Timing. At 22 seconds, my final video is very short. I set every keyframe from the 305th keyframe onwards, very closely to each other. This was done to get a fast animation, beginning from the time when the ball appears in front of the robot. I believe that the movement of the ball should be fast in order for it to capture the robot's attention. And because the robot is fascinated by it and therefore, looking at the ball, it's movements had to be fast as well. However, I could have still used the graph editor to slowdown the entire animation.


The second principle is ease in and out. This principle was applied in that particular story arc when the robot sees the ball. The robot's momentum is slowed down at that point of time. This shows some of the easing in in the animation. For the ease out, I could have done set the keyframes more further apart from each other towards the end. This will slow down the speed at which the ball moves and since the robot is constantly looking at the ball, it's movement will also be slower. 


For the squash and stretch principle was not done right in many areas of the animation. For example, the ball is squashed on many occasions, before even coming into contact with a surface. This can be seen in the 370th keyframe when the ball becomes squashed before it touches the ground. Although the ball could have resumed its original shape when it reaches its peak, I instead, made it the most stretched at that same keyframe to illustrate the amount of influence that the squash has on the stretch. Overall, the squash and stretch effects used are in extreme. This is to exaggerate the movement of the ball.


Anticipation can be found from the very beginning of the video when audience are able to see the ball on one of the boxes, even before the robot does. This will build up anticipation in the audience as they will be wondering why it is there. 


This project, I felt, was done alright. There are many things which I felt I could have done or added. The main thing would be the use of the graph editor to slow down the entire animation, especially from the 305th keyframe onwards. This could have made my final video longer as well.