Ball Animation and Nog character test

The art of Ball Bouncing animation

For another assignment I had to learn from the animation course was the technique of bouncing a ball. If you understand the principle of a bouncing object, then one can do it as an animation. For this task, i had to animate a bouncing ball from a 2D scale and a ball tied onto a bouncing cube.

Here are the tests of ball bouncing animation that I have completed. With animation its all about the timing, the weight and the speed. some animators do not necessary obey the natural rules of life with certain objects and characters but it must be shown. When the ball is dropped, according to what speed, the ball changes shape when it lands it squashes itself. drawing the bouncing effect and when to drop it needs to be precise, which is why timing is important. I have learned through 2D animation when to draw precise moments of time and speed of certain objects, example when should an object go really fast by skipping a small action bit in the frames. You may notice this with the cube bounce, it hangs a bit in mid air then increasingly heads downwards very fast.

This here is a 3D animation ball test(s) along with my notes of the Ball Bouncing Animation technique. The 3D test was on a software called "maya". With little experience it took me a while to figure out how to work it but with the help of other students from my course, I was able to configure of how to make a ball bounce through the software. Each ball bounces differently because of the weight i placed upon them. One bounces for a short period while the other bounces a little more before coming to a halt.

The heavy ball

The lighter ball

Introduction of a new character: NOG

From the same concept as a hero only he represents the funny or comic hero. He becomes Ood's best friend in his quest to understand the world of Arta and free it from the grip of ill. Nog is of a very different species, a creature with three pupils in each eye,a very thin mouth and whose legs are wide apart. I wanted to have an amusing character for my future Arta projects. He is not very bright but can improvise on ideas. I used him to try out a jumping technique of animation using the same "ball bounce" skill.

Nog is in the air heading towards the ground. His head is back then moves slightly forward. When his feet touch the ground, he begins to bend his legs down. His head squashes in then stretches his body up and pushes on his legs to jump up. his body elongates a bit then comes back to normal after the jump. This is but a test to see how I can animate my characters through several techniques.