Animation 101: Weight (Displaying Arcs Bouncing Balls)

In this session of stop motion animation, we were tasked to take the principle of Arcs further than the pendulum task. This was with showing the parabolic trajectory of various balls that had different properties, where weight was concerned. These balls were: A bowling ball A ping pong ball A beach ball A clay ball and A balloon Firstly I set up my booth in the same way as the pendulum exercise, (with the camera being set to a bird's eye view). I decided that a 10 pence piece would be the best prop to represent the ball. (also because the coin has a face on it, I could animate the rotations of a bouncing ball, whilst it is in mid air).

Before I began animating, I watched these reference videos that I found on YouTube: Ping pong ball reference:

Bowling ball reference:

Beach Ball reference:

It was difficult to find a clay ball or balloon reference, so I shall get back to that later.

In the studio, I started out by animating the lightest and heaviest balls. After watching the reference video, I estimated the timing and drew out this bar sheet for my ping pong ball:

(Below is the updated* version of the bar sheet).

This was the result of my stop motion animation:

I tried to get the ease in and ease out, at the peak of the arcs, however, I think the momentum of the ball is too quick. This is probably because I was trying to make the ball look light weight, this in turn impaired the quality of the animation and overall it looks too fast. I drew out this estimated bar sheet for my bowling ball as well:

(Below is the updated** version of my bar sheet for the bowling ball).

This was the result of my stop motion animation:

A combination of a reference video an my ping pong ball stop motion, influenced my beach ball animation. I noticed that, in theory, the motion path of the beach ball was essentially similar to the ping pong ball animation, but just slowed down, with more frames. Below is the bar sheet I prepared for my beach ball after watching the reference footage:

For my clay ball reference, I recorded a video of myself dropping a ball of blue-tack:

This proved to be extremely helpful, as I had no clue how as to how a clay ball bounced. I also had the option of setting the balls trajectory, etc. In future exercises I shall definitely utilise more primary research. I drew out this bar sheet:

This was the result in my stop motion:

I must say that I feel like the clay ball and bowling ball were very similar. I need to hear feedback in review in order to solve what is going wrong here. My suspicions are that the bowling ball stop motion video is the one at fault. I will most likely have to redo this video. Finally, to finish off this weights task we were briefed with taking one of our stop motion exercises into Maya. Seeing as we were originally given 5 options of ball to animate, I have decided that rather than animate a ball I've already done in stop motion, I have decided to animate the fifth ball option of a balloon, into Maya to help understand all of the weights behind the balls. This was the final result of my balloon bounce animation made in Maya:

I am in two minds as to the effectiveness of this animation. I can't decide if it's convincing enough. I shall need to hear from my tutors review. I am now very eager to hear feedback in review overall. was a hard to tackle task but I have noticed I'm getting more confident where the 12 principles are concerned because I feel like I am consciously considering principles like follow through action and arcs in most if not all of my animations. UPDATE*** Upon reflection, I have decided to redo my bowling ball and ping pong ball animation.

Updated Ping Pong ball* :

There were more frames in this version of my ping pong ball. I feel where I really struggle with animating this motion path, is that I'm trying to make the parabolic actions look uniform, which of course, (when you look at the reference footage), is not strictly true to real life. However I am pleased that this version of my work does look more realistic, in the sense that the ball takes off with more ease, and doesn't just fire off like my first version. Updated Bowling ball** :

In the update of my bowling ball, I tried to make the decent look less 'magnetic' as in, this time I let my bowling ball bounce and roll, rather than just have it shudder in place once it had dropped abruptly, with little or no bounce at all. I'm pleased that I went back to these animations in order for myself to fully consolidate my understanding of different weights in parabolic motions. This has certainly been the most patience-requiring and most challenging of the stop motion tasks. Yet again, I find myself with a real appreciation for observation and translation when looking at animation, especially with stop motion. This has been an exciting introduction to a medium of animation that I have never properly tried before and would have never been tempted to study, prior to this course. I'm excited for Animation 102, next semester, as I am eager to expand my stop motion knowledge and try out animating with armetures.