Motion through Bouncing Balls

This past weeks assignment was a lot of fun exploring a pretty basic subject matter, three bouncing balls. The concept was to take three balls of different weights and sizes and apply them to a scene. Now for some reason I immediately thought of this video I saw awhile back:

First off, that guy is extremely talented! Along with several other people on you tube. Check out amazing soccer kicks sometime, it's crazy! So I immediately thought of focusing on this event and two other sports with balls that have varying weights. Those being bocce and a game called cornhole, which apparently isn't as widely known as I thought. So I started doing some research on slow mo capture videos of balls being hit or thrown against the wall. I have to say its pretty wild! Check out a few that I came across:

The golf ball still blows my mind! Now obviously, to the human eye, we can't see that movement until it slowed down with a camera. This does not mean that it doesn't make a difference in animation. In order to get the correct feel of a ball rolling or bouncing, we need to think about the minor details in its movement. How does the ball move when its coming in? How does it react when it hits the ground? Is their a slight bump to objects? Also, how do those objects react? Its amazing the questions that just go into three bouncing balls but it helps make the most convincing arguments. Therefore, I have always felt it necessary to analyze what your working on and break it down into segments. In this case, focus your segment on the timeline editor and then analyze the graph sequences. This will then allow you to manipulate the curves and its effects on the ball within the environment. I spent a lot of time focusing on the bocce balls and how they would slow down at different moments and also how movement would lead into another event.

It is important to keep the viewer intrigued as to what is going on in the scene. Originally I had a stationary camera without a slight change at the end. The main comment I received in critique was "Whats going on in the background?" Therefore, I decided to move the camera and give it a nice subtle zoomed in shot to help focus on what was exactly going on in the back. I tried to have something bleed into the next portion of the animation. Meaning, the plank of wood falls around the timing of the ball entering the scene and the bocce ball slows down as the hackie sack enters. Then a quick movement of the camera. Its amazing what a camera set up can do to a scene but that is another topic I can spend hours discussing!

The following was the result after a class critique:

I do apologize for the darkness. It normally is a bit lighter before being compressed. I hope to figure out some new techniques in lighting after catching up on some of the lighting effects. Overall I was happy after adjusting the animation after the critique. There are still some minor things I would like to have finessed such as the garbage can movement after the soccer ball hits and the angle of the bocce ball.

It was interesting to explore textures with this project. Though, I have learned to approach texturing in a different way. Hopefully I will be able to pull that together for this weeks assignment.

Happy 10-10-10! CRAZY HUH!