Exercise 3.1 - Refined bouncing ball
Animate a bouncing ball moving from left to right until it reaches a full stop. To complete this animation utilize traditional animation techniques and the principles of timing, ease in and out and arcs.
Guidelines
For this exercise we will be using pencil and paper to create a bouncing ball animation as shown below. You will need to draw around 45 frames to create this animation.
While creating this animation, always refer back to the principles of timing and spacing, ease in and ease out and arcs.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1izavzXxxC-QbBzgjhdJeZIUr2-MA1jzW looping bouncing ball
Materials
- Very light grammage paper. You will need at least one sheet for each frame of animation
- Transparent adhesive tape/hole puncher
- A binder
- A pencil
- Scanner, photographic camera or cellphone to digitize your drawings
Adobe After Effects to create a sequence from your drawings and export the final video
You can choose to tape your paper to a surface to make sure the pages will stay aligned as you draw, but a binder and hole punched paper is highly recommended.
Steps to Completion
Print the reference sheet from this link.
Place the reference sheet on a table or binder and secure the corners with tape.
Place another sheet of paper on top of the first and secure the bottom of the page on the binder or with tape. Keep the pages aligned.
Draw a ball using the first ball from the reference page. Write the number 0 on the top right corner of this page and circle it, so in the future you'll know this is 'keyframe 0'.
Remove the previous page and place another sheet of paper on top of the reference and once again secure it on the binder or with some tape.
Using the reference, draw the second position. Write the number 7 on the top right corner of the page and circle it.
Repeat steps 5 and 6 until you have created all of the keyframes from the reference.
Now that you have your keyframes it is time find and draw your extremes. Take keyframes 0 and 7 and place a sheet of paper between them. Place them on top of the reference and secure them on the binder or with tape, always trying to keep them aligned. Once you finished drawing the frame, number it accordingly.
Now that you have your keyframes and extremes it is time to draw your inbetweens. Go from keyframe to extreme, then extreme to the next keyframe and so on. Flip through your pages constantly to check if the movement looks right.
When you finish all your frames, take pictures or scan each drawing, making sure that they are aligned. If you are using a camera or cellphone, it is a good idea to use a tripod.
Bring the images to After Effects by following the steps in this video (there is no need to create a loop for this animation):
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1gLpEux_N0bPCiwlUuSMIF0Eit01Wcp2z
Render your animation as an .mp4 video
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1QwEPYIKSqfpRsJegs3lSV0hBFM9ToEDf
Upload it to your frame.io page using this naming convention: art204_exercise3-1_lastname_firstname.mp4
Post the link to your video on the exercise page