Aim
I'd like to explore how to make the movement of the bricks on the belts looks mechanical.
Method
The bricks and belt were drawn in Adobe Illustrator and then animated in Adobe After Effect (AE). With AE, the bricks, the upper and lower belt were made to move in a constant velocity.
Result
Experiment 1
To present the feel of mechanical, each brick has a fixed distance from the other bricks and they appear one by one after a certain amount of time orderly. I think this is the “rhythm” of this process. After making the smooth movement of bricks on the belt, I wonder if it is too “smooth” as a mechanical movement.
Experiment 2
Therefore, some pauses and bounces with fixed time intervals were added. The amplitude of each bounce was calculated and is the same as each other to make the process looks mechanical.
Discussion
After making the animation, I found the videos on Youtube showing the bricks actually move smoothly on a conveyor belt. I should have searched for the videos references on Youtube before I work on the animations. I think the discoveries of this time can be applied later when I work on the AR animation for the playable city project.
Links
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txPrbtShVEs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na5rusQNbUM