This week we revisited the 12 principles of animation; and were then tasked with animating a ball bounce. I chose to animate using Maya as I am more familiar with it.

Research

Here are some reference images and gifs I found to help breakdown the movement of the ball; as well as timing and the squash and stretch. I also watched the tutorials Alec made and a YouTube tutorial.

 

Process

I started by blocking out the path the ball would follow; as well as roughly timing the animation. I then started to add in-betweens around the top of the arcs so the ball would slow in the air to show the loss of speed; each arc was roughly half the height of the previous. I turned on the movement path during this process so I could see the arcs the ball was making; I also adjusted the timing.

 

I added some squash and stretch to the ball as it hit the ground and was propelled back into the air. Finally, I used the graph editor to sharpen the fall speed as well clean up the curves the ball followed.

 

Outcome

This is the final animation. Overall, the timing looks good, and the ball squash and stretch add a sense of speed and weight.

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