Animate a Flour Sack Leap With Weight

Flour Sack Suicide

In this animation tutorial we show how to animate a Flour Sack hurling itself from a great height.  

The purpose of the tutorial is to create the illusion of weight and balance, by animating the flour sack landing, bouncing, and settling on the ground. 

The tutorial uses the Rockin' Rooster Flour Sack rig, downloadable from high end3d.com. 

Flour Sack Animation with Joshua Reynolds

 

Above is a fine example of "Flour Sack" animation by Animation Apprentice student Joshua Reynolds, using the free flour sack rig, available for download online.  The flour sack rig is one we like to use in the early stages of learning animation, so that students can get used to the idea of creating the illusion of weight, and also getting a performance from an inanimate object.

Flour Sack Rigs!

Rockin' Rooster Flour Sack

Meet the flour sack! The free flour sack rig is one we like to use in the early stages of learning animation, so that students can get used to the idea of creating the illusion of weight, and also getting a performance from an inanimate object.

The idea of making a flour sack give a performance dates back to the early days of the Walt Disney studios, when lead animators would test the mettle of aspiring juniors by getting them to do thumbnail sketches of sacks of flour, to see if they could get an emotional and interesting pose that communicated an idea clearly.

The idea was, if you can get a great pose out of a sack of flour - you can do it with anything.