At animation school in Viborg we’ve now entered the four week Animation Basics module. Here’s a collection of exercises from the first week.

The quintessential animation exercise: bouncing balls (in spaaaaaaace!). Actually I think it’s important you get this down allright before moving on to less simple stuff.

We had a go at the classic Luxo Jr lamp. The way it works is we get these ready made rigs, and then we get to play with them. So I didn’t model this, but I spent a helluva long time trying to make it shine and glow like a lamp, and that wasn’t even part of the assignment!

We spent two days animating a sack of flour. Yes, you may laugh. We also made it dance…

Meet Hogan. We will work a lot with this rig. He’s a bit funny, like you can see his neck throgh his mouth and stuff. But as I played with him I found him quite expressive. You can make him do just about anything. He’s like a digital puppet. The exercise was to make 7 poses for 7 characteristics/feelings. Can you tell which ones they are?