Two Bouncing Balls

Your first assignment for the semester is something of a warmup. You'll be animating two bouncing balls of differing weights and sizes interacting. "Interacting" can be taken to mean either physically touching one another in motion or both hitting another movable prop in motion, like the see-saw I showed you in class today, or knocking over columns, or walls, or other props. If you are unsure of how a ball would bounce, look for references! You must have access to at least one tennis / base / bouncy / bowling ball, or some time to search around on Youtube. A little reference can go a long way in this assignment.

Try to use the "blocking" / "layout" method I showed you for this assignment: focus on setting the most basic keyframes for all objects first (S to set a key on all attributes simultaneously), without worrying so much about their timing or the quality of their motion. Just try to get a plan laid out in advance. Once all the elements are represented, you can go back and begin changing your timing by dragging keyframes around in the graph editor (middle mouse button with the Translate Tool active) and adding additional layers of motion like squash / stretch and roll.

Shoot for a total length of between 3 and 6 seconds for this assignment. That means at 24 frames per second you would have a total run time of between 72 and 144 frames, but probably much closer to 72. This is just a suggested length though, not a rule. Adjust your time sliders accordingly when you begin blocking your animation.

Remember to use the Referencing system and Project Folder organization we've talked about in class. The previous two posts on this blog cover those in more detail if you've forgotten anything.

When you're all finished with your animation, archive your project folder with all the scene files in it. It shouldn't be over a megabyte or two, so attach it to an email and get it to me before class on Monday.