WEEK 9: Animation Direction 1 - Intro to Maya & Animation Review - Bouncing Balls

Animating a Bouncing Ball is nearly always the first animation assignment given to both 2D and 3D animation students.  This deceptively simple exercise can teach you a lot about the nuts and bolts of animation tools, but more importantly how to give believable weight and appealing timing to your animation.

Strobe photos are fantastic for showing the beautifully symmetrical parabolic arcs followed by everything that leaves the Earth... except a rocket.

Basket Ball

Golf Ball

Tennis Ball

Great reference vids:

• Super Bouncers: Sony Bravia
• Bowling Balls: Nissan Qashqai-Urban-Bowling

• Also check out the video "Ball Tests" by Brendan Body (also in sidebar links -->)

Experiment with weight and through timing & spacing -- create 3 bouncing balls with contrasting sizes and weights. Keep practicing until you're very comfortable in Maya and with the timing tools we used in class.

Check out the Digital Tutors 'Intro to Maya' and also their Visual Guide to the Graph Editor