In this post I’m going to be discussing the principles of animation with research and practical examples to show my understanding of animation. This first part will be the bouncing ball, a simple task used to help with the fundamentals of animation, using; squash and stretch, timing and spacing, arcs, ease in and out, pose-to-pose and exaggeration. These together create the fluid motion of a ball bouncing and falling down.
Richard William’s Survival Kit and Timing in Animation by Harold Whitaker, John Halas both were used in figuring out the general timing and understanding of the bouncing ball, taking the idea of spacing, timing, squash and stretch and Arcs to put together the stages of the animation. The ball eases in when it reaches it peak and then eases out, the arc contains where the ball goes with squash and stretch helps emphasis the the ball when it squashes and stretches. These methods can be applied to other examples like someone jumping and a mallet moving. Richard William’s also uses the example of a coin and shows spacing in how that impacts the movement of the object.
Putting these together helps create the illusion of an object having a smooth enter and exit. Which creates the illusion of a ball bouncing.
After looking at the Animator’s survival kit and Timing in Animation, I created some rough ideas of what the potential movement for these would be like, similar to the book’s suggestion. The ball arcs, squashes and stretches and moves. The other examples here are used for potential weight changes, a lighter ball like a ping-pong ball and a slower, heavier, bowling ball.
Another example found for help with researching this was “Bouncing Ball – How to make an animation” by Puuung 퍼엉
This example shows off their way of creating a bouncing ball and how it uses similar ideas from the Survival kit and timing in animation, squash and stretch, timing, spacing, easing in and out and other principles.
Once the core concepts were created next was moving onto the bouncing ball, creating a sphere and a floor in maya I used a mixture of Translate, Rotate and Scale to help use the ball into the direction of animation I wanted, the ball’s scale can be adjusted for squash and stretch, translate helps move and rotation to add an example spin to a typical ball.
Final bounce animation, showing the principles in action. The ball animation itself showcases the principles I have outlined however for next time I’d try and make the ball move faster as of right now it has a slight “float” to it that feels like it makes the ball lighter than I would of liked, changing the timing to be faster or having the air time be less might of allowed for a more solid overall ball.
Another animation of the ball, a sort of alternate idea with a smaller, lighter ball and having it bounce in a similar manner to the previous example but have the air time intentionally longer as the weight has changed from a standard bouncing ball to a more rigid and denser item.
The first bounce could of been adjusted to have a more solid looking bounce as is, potentially pushed higher as its a very light material and the first bounce should shoot further up however the bounces after the first do have a solid bounce overall.
The graphic editor for the ball bounces, the graph editor is adjusted for each version of the ball bounce. Translate Y, Translate X, Rotation Z, and Scale Y were all adjusted here to create this graph and creates this pattern.
Some parts of the graph needed to be cleaned up however the main areas of the animation are perfectly useable as is.
Conclusion:
Overall the bouncing ball exercise was a success as it demonstrated the principles in their most clearest ways, a good starting exercise to help us get back into the groove of animation. Helps get us thinking about squash and stretch, easing in and out, Arcs and the general principles overall. The bouncing ball exercise helps build on the foundations of the principles, most likely the reason Richard Williams and the Timing for animation book both have them.
What I’d do for next time is try and figure out how to make the ball’s mass feel solid and keep the volume consistent to hopefully make the ball feel like a solid ball and not a more malleable mass. Even though Solid drawing wasn’t a principle that was possible with 3D, certain ideas can be taken from it to create the idea of realism when it comes to an object.