The bouncing ball animation is a renowned exercise. It teaches some of the 12 principles of animation in a condensed, simple way. These are the 12 principles of Animation:
- Squash and Stretch – ‘Squashing’ or ‘stretching’ an object to give it weight and volume.
- Timing – The amount of frames used in an animation, it affects the weight and speed of movement.
- Arcs – Everything (with a few exceptions) follows an arc. drawing movement in an arc makes it feel natural.
- Anticipation – Tells the audience that whatever is being animated is about to perform an action. E.g. Bringing a bat backwards before swinging it forward.
- Pose to Pose and Straight ahead – Pose to Pose is where you draw key poses and fill in the action between them. Straight ahead is where you animate frame after frame.
- Solid Drawing – The idea of giving your characters a 3D form, giving them weight and volume.
- Staging – Used to present an idea to the viewer in a clear way.
- Follow through and Overlapping – Follow through is when a secondary action continues after the main one has stopped. Overlapping is where actions overlap one another and don’t stop at the same time.
- Ease in and Ease out – Also known as Slow in and Slow out, it has to do with the spacing of frames and is used to show speed.
- Secondary Action – Used to support the main action, adds depth and realism.
- Exaggeration – Used to give appeal to an action, character, or movement.
- Appeal – Making your designs appeal to the audience is crucial for communication.
This is the bouncing ball I have animated. I think I could improve on it if I had given myself some more time to work on it, as the speed of the ball falling could be tweaked on the last bounce of the ball.