Bouncing Ball Obstacle Course

I thought about what kind of bouncing ball animation I should make. The options were cartoony (moves of own volition and energy), the realistic (natural laws of physics applied) or somewhere in-between. I chose the last one. An animation where the ball has a sense of gravity but has enough power to move around the obstacle course such as this.

At this point I had completed the key frames and was working on adjusting the timing. I noticed this part seemed a little unnatural. Since I want the ball to hit the upper platform in the third bounce. It seems wrong to have the ball bounce such a small arc in the second bounce, when it has to hit the the upper platform in the third bounce. I decided to elongate the first upper platform and have the second bounce go off of that platform. This shows that the ball is maintaining the momentum and energy from the curve ‘run up’.

I included certain 1 (or more) pauses at the base of the bounce arcs, so that it shows that the ball is bouncing on its own. I learned this from the fox and tail animation (another blog post). With this anticipation, it gives the ball time to build momentum, leading to a jump that seems more exaggerated as you seethe anticipation before the bounce.

Once I altered the arc’s tangents in the graph editor, it looked like this.

I made all of the translate Z tangents into straight lines where appropriate. And most of the translate Y tangents into broken, rounded arcs. This excluded the bounce between the platforms, these were made into straight tangents, like so:

At this point, I have animated my key frames for the X and Z translation and edited them in the graph editor. The play blast for this animation will be in a video below.

After looking at the play blast, I realised that i did not need the anticipation (my pauses) at certain points. For example, the second bounce in the sequence. I will also adjust the timing slightly, some parts need to be sped up. While it may be fine at this point, I want it faster for the benefit of aesthetics.

As you can see below, I decided to delete the translate z key frames that are at the peak of the bounces arcs.

This made it so that my edits did not effect these points, as they looked slightly off previously.

The outcome is as I hoped for. I will now do the same to the rest of the arcs.

This is after I have adjusted the tangents accordingly in the graph editor. I am really happy with the result. The ball looks really natural.

I made many adjustments within the graph editor, as well as the timing since it seemed off in some places, e.g. the bounces between the platforms in the middle (see image below).

I had some trouble with the graph editor, I needed to remember to edit all other animations if I decided to change the timing. So, much editing was needed.

Ball Rotation done:

Play Blasts

Final Animation

The popping in the renders do not appear in the scene. No sure how to fix this.