Alright, let me tell you about this “schlossnagle swinger” thing I messed around with. It’s not as scandalous as it sounds, haha.
So, I was looking into some motion design stuff, right? Needed something that felt natural, like a pendulum. Stumbled upon this “schlossnagle swinger” concept while digging through some old physics simulations. Looked kinda cool, a bit different from your standard sine wave bob.
First, I grabbed a basic animation tool. Used After Effects ’cause that’s what I know. Started by creating a simple shape, like a square. That’s going to be my “swinger.”
Next, the math. Oh boy. This is where it got a little hairy. The schlossnagle swinger’s motion is based on some funky equations that I barely understood. I found a few snippets of code online that described the movement. Copied and pasted (don’t judge!).
Then the tweaking began. Slapped the expression onto the rotation property of my square. The thing just started spinning wildly! Okay, not quite what I wanted. Had to mess with the parameters in the expression. Stuff like amplitude, frequency, damping – fiddled with those until I got something that looked like a smooth, gentle swing.
The key was the damping. Without that, the “swinger” just keeps going and going forever. Damping makes it slow down and eventually come to a stop, like a real pendulum.
After that, I played around with different shapes, colors, and backgrounds. Added a little shadow to give it some depth. Made a few different versions with varying swing speeds and damping amounts.
It’s not perfect, and my understanding of the underlying math is still pretty shaky, but I got something that looks pretty decent. Ended up using it as a subtle background animation for a website I was working on. Added a nice touch.
Lessons Learned:
- Physics simulations can be surprisingly useful for motion design.
- Don’t be afraid to copy and paste code, but try to understand what it’s doing.
- Damping is your friend.
It was a fun little project! Now I just need to figure out what a real schlossnagle swinger is, haha!
