Cannon Ball
Project 3: Cannon Ball
Colin Wright 2/14/2019
Final Animation
Story Board
Inspiration and Process
I got my inspiration from a game called "Plants vs zombies". The game features plants which for the most part use there fruit or seeds as projectiles to defend against zombies. I decided to make a new addition to the plant arsenal. I started off creating the story board, including details of the design and my plans for the animation. I modeled everything myself. I knew the texturing for what I had planned would be difficult and I didn't end up having enough time to play with the UV editor in Maya to get them to turn out just the way I pictured in the story board. The animation of the cannon turned out nicely, and I decided to make the water melon cannon ball bounce and be a little squishy to practice squash and stretch. The melon has I used a shatter effect and the bullet Maya plugin to create the shattering of the watermelon projectile and a bifrost fluid to create the bit of watermelon juice that spills out of the cannon after firing.
Disney 12 Principals
Squash and stretch: Implemented squash and stretch with the bouncing of the ball and the body of the cannon as its preparing to fire.
Anticipation: The spark on the wick and then the squash of the cannon indicates its preparing to fire and gives the audience plenty of time to anticipate the action.
Staging: I used different camera angles to control the audiences eyes, adjusting to a closer view of the object of interest as needed. I also tried to pay attention to placing points of interest in the thirds of the screen. I put the cannon with the spark in the left third and the target at the end in the right third.
Straight ahead action and pose to pose: I animated everything in the animation using pose to pose. I could have animated the spark with a less cartoonish, more realistic, sort of fiery spark and straight ahead action animation would have been a better choice there.
Follow through and overlapping action: The cannon follows through, stretching out after firing. It also has its internal juices follow through after the cannon ball given that its supposed to be a watermelon. I would have given the juices more follow through instead of just dropping out but I didn't have enough time to play with the bifrost liquid settings.
Slow in and slow out: The wind up on the cannon starts off slowly, then fires. Similar to the bouncing ball tutorial, the watermelon cannon ball slows at peaks before gravity overcomes it and its pulled down.
Arc: The rotating of the wheels and support on the cannon when firing is done in an arc pattern. The melon cannon ball also travels in an arced trajectory.
Secondary action: The animation done on the support and wheels is a subtle example of secondary action. As the cannon braces itself to fire, its supporting features look like they're squished down to handle the shift in weight
Timing: I had to adjust the melon cannon balls speed to make sure it had enough speed to justify its explosion against the target. II could have made the ball move faster and the explosion happen quicker to look more realistic but then the animation wouldn't have reached the required ten seconds.
Exaggeration: I exaggerated the squash on the cannon body as its preparing to fire. The explosion of the water melon is also a bit exaggerated being more violent then it would be in real life.
Solid drawing: The target is supposed to be a solid body, looking rigid on the edges and also being quite thick. It doesn't move at all when struck by the melon. I could have animated a slight bit of movement where the target rocked slightly then quickly settled to make it appear more solid.
Appeal: I wanted to make the melon and melon cannon appealing bright colors. The nice looking juice spilling out adds an element of appeal to the watermelon making it appear more juicy and tasty.