Assignment Overview: Bouncing Ball x 2 (Light & Heavy)

With this assignment, we will cover:

    -Animation Preferences (Framerate, Ghosting) 

    -Grease Pencil

    -timeline

    -setting, moving, deleting key frames

    -Graph Editor

    -animation curves, tangent types, manipulating tangents

    -some of the Principles of Animation (the rest come later):

        Ease In/Out

        Anticipation

        Squash & Stretch

        Appeal

        Staging

    -preserving volume

    -pivot points

    -in camera cuts

    -importing sound 

Keep in mind: Every object in motion wants to stay in motion; every object at rest wants to stay at rest. Animate forces, not shapes.

Begin by thinking about a motion path, i.e. the arcs your bouncing ball will describe. The ball should start dropping from the top of your screen, fall down, bounce back up, etc. (hit the ground/bounce three times) then — gently — come to a standstill. Create a drawing (on paper) to visualize your ball’s motion path.

As the ball settles into a rest position, it should roll a bit. Likewise, after you animated the bounces, you may want to let it rotate into the motion. (Why might rotating the ball not work while it is squashing and stretching?)

To start, set frame range to about 60 - 90 frames

In Maya, create a sphere, move the pivot point to the bottom so that it will squash and stretch to the point of impact. Now create a plane (floor).

When adjusting the camera, keep in mind that the ball is the main actor. Stage your actor clearly.