Research - bouncing ball
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In these videos I am focusing on at how the ball bounces off the surface and also how it slows down to stop. And also how the height impacts the bounce. The heavy ball does not bounce a lot compared to a light ball.
I have noticed that the ball size don't influence the bounce, but the weight does. I have also looked at it in a slow motion so I get a better idea of how the ball comes to a stop. |
Storyboard
I have drawn myself some storyboard so I can produce it in Maya. In this task I am focusing on the principle of animation. I believe that to get a successful animation, you need as many principles of animation as you can.
- Stretch and squash- How the ball squashes when it hits the ground and also ball goes back in the circle shape when it's on the air.
- Ease in and Ease out- The ball bounces into the scene and comes to a stop slowly as it leaves the scene.
- Exaggeration- When the ball hits the ground and also when it springs back off the ground.
- Timing and spacing- This is very important in this animation because, this will let the viewer know how fast is the ball travelling and to what distance. As the ball slows down to stop there is less gap between each bounce.
- Arc's- This is fundamental that you get this right or your animation may go pear shape (unless that's your target). As you can see on my storyboard I have used arc's to get my ball bouncing across the scene.
Visualization
I have drawn some visualization of the bouncing ball in position like when the heavy ball falls on the light ball and squashes it. I think this is a great way to visualize my animation before I get to producing it. This will help me when animating the ball. In this visualization you can see two different animation principles. Squash and stretch and also exaggeration.
Process
Graph Editor.
This is the graph of my bouncing ball. To get the perfect arc I had to add weights on the keyframes, I did that by going Curves > Weighted Tangents. After that I freed the weight, I did that by going on Tangents > Free Tangents Weight. This allowed me to adjust the arc's of the ball bouncing freely, without effecting the other arc next to it. I have also used Linear tangent to get a pointy curve at the bottom. This will allow the ball to bounce straight up. This will make the animation believable, which I discovered when I was researching. These arc's are also an animation principle.
This is the graph of my bouncing ball. To get the perfect arc I had to add weights on the keyframes, I did that by going Curves > Weighted Tangents. After that I freed the weight, I did that by going on Tangents > Free Tangents Weight. This allowed me to adjust the arc's of the ball bouncing freely, without effecting the other arc next to it. I have also used Linear tangent to get a pointy curve at the bottom. This will allow the ball to bounce straight up. This will make the animation believable, which I discovered when I was researching. These arc's are also an animation principle.
To get the blur effect I have used Depth of field that can be found under on camera's attributes. To measure the distance between the camera and the ball I used to measure tool that can be found by going to Create > Measure Tool > Distance Tool. I have key framed depth of field attributes so I can focus/blur some areas of the animation.
Render's
I think the animation that I created is successful. Stretch and squash make the animation believable. The timing and spacing also arc's works well to give a feeling of realism. As this is my first animation there are some errors, like if you look closely the ball doesn't touch the ground. Next I render I will get the ball to touch the ground.
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As I learn how to use the Deformer to make my ball squash, I though I might try something else with it. This car that I modelled during my free time.
I think the spin of the ball at the end works very well, as the back wheel goes fast over the ball. I also like how the wheel goes over the ball, the front wheel goes slowly over and the back wheel goes over fast like in real life (personal experiences when driving). I can tweak this animation to make it perfect by having some frames at the end of time animation, so it sinks in what just happen. Everything seems too fast. |
After all of my tests I like this one the most because of the camera angles. I have used five different camera's in this animation. Which makes the animation more interesting to look at. The depth of field gives it a warm feeling. This was my first time using depth of field. I think the squash on the striped ball make the other ball looks more heavy. I have used the feedback I got to improve this. I have made the heavy ball bounce on the spot and removed the roll at the end of the animation also got them to come to a stop slowly. I can see a big difference between my last animation and this animation. This looks and feels more real and believable.
I have used mental ray to render this out. I have rendered it in 1080HD at 24 frames per second in Tiff. I have used Tiff format because the file will not be compressed, I will get best quality. After rendering the frames I took them to Adobe After Effects to put them in sequence and render them in .MOV file so I can upload it on YouTube.
If I was told to recreate this I would do it in less time and also make it better. I would make it better by adding two more balls with different weight and get them to collide with each other. Or I can use the two balls that I already have in the scene and get them to bounce around even more. Bounce the balls from higher hight.
I have used mental ray to render this out. I have rendered it in 1080HD at 24 frames per second in Tiff. I have used Tiff format because the file will not be compressed, I will get best quality. After rendering the frames I took them to Adobe After Effects to put them in sequence and render them in .MOV file so I can upload it on YouTube.
If I was told to recreate this I would do it in less time and also make it better. I would make it better by adding two more balls with different weight and get them to collide with each other. Or I can use the two balls that I already have in the scene and get them to bounce around even more. Bounce the balls from higher hight.