Sunday 30 September 2012

Bouncing Ball - Diagrams.

Since i wrote up my last post i have been working on the spacing for my ball bounce. When i timed it the ball bounce was around 1.6 seconds long. I have been working out how to draw the ball bounce, when and where i should draw the individual frames etc. I know that to make a second of footage you need 25 individual frames, and to make 2 seconds worth of footage you need to have 50 individual frames.

Therefore (25 F = 1 second)+ (12.5 F= 0.5 seconds) = 37.5 F = 1.5 seconds. I needed another 0.1 seconds so i rounded the number of frames up to 40 F, in which i thought would add the extra 0.1 second and it also makes it an even number.

I then 'tried' to work out how much time each individual frame would represent so i did 1.6 seconds / 40 frames = 0.04 seconds, so each individual frame should be 0.04 seconds. (Since looking at my workings out on the image below i can now see where i did the sums wrong, i double counted some of the frames where the ball hit the ground and also where the ball reaches its highest height at the top of each bounce. I started adding up wrong after the ball bounced for its second time - so ignore the sums after that, they should be:

  • first drop down = 9 frames = 0.36 seconds
  • first bounce up= 7 frames = 0.28 seconds.
  • falls back to the floor for second bounce = 6 frames = 0.24 seconds
  • second bounce up = 5 frames = 0.20 seconds
  • fall to third bounce = 5 frames = 0.20 seconds
  • bounce up = 3 frames = 0.12 seconds
  • fall back down = 3 frames = 0.12 seconds.
  • last bounce = 1 frame = 0.04 seconds
  • last touch = 1 frame= 0.04 seconds.
0verall = 1.6 seconds in length






















I am hoping that this will work when i put it into dragon software. The things i am concerned about are, if the animation is too quick - it should not be as i have worked it out and the animation should work out to be exactly 1.6 seconds long which is what my actual ball bounce was. I am concerned that the bounce it self will not be fluid and smooth, i will NOT work if it is jerky and abrupt, however, i wont be able to do anything about it until i put all of my work into Dragon and see how it runs. I would also like to add a roll at the end however, i did not have enough room on the page, and it would have added unnecessary effort as i was told to concentrate on the ball bounce and nothing else... i am also concerned about the third ball bounce so frame 32 as i think maybe i should have done the frame less squished and more of circular shape because the ball looses momentum and energy and the shape of the ball manipulates less. I did try to make each bounce less semicircular and more 'circular' but i think i should have made it more obvious on the third bounce.
The diagram to the left i was just playing around with what i was talking about on my previous post - the heavier ball, snooker ball. I know our brief was to animate ball bounce of the ball we were given in class but to also test and experiment with adding in frames to the top and bottom of the bounces to see how it changed the bounce. But i thought it would be interesting (for me) to look into heavier balls and how they bounce as i have not done something like this before, so i am rather excited about it. The diagram is not a mathematical diagram, it had not been worked out to the T, but it for me is an estimate of how it should look bounce. Although i think i have been rather generous with the height of its bounce, but it does have a deceptively large bounce for its one and only bounce. Maybe what looks wrong is the angle that the ball is coming in from, i think i will have the ball drop at more of a vertical angle, its maybe too curved. I am really looking forward to getting back into University tomorrow morning and putting all of my drawings onto Dragon and see how they animate! If all goes well i will be experimenting loads which the change in character of the ball bounce etc!

Bouncing Ball - Preparation


Over the weekend i have been concentrating on getting my ball bounce right. As i haven't made a ball bounce before it is a bit of trial and change and using your imagination to draw what you think it should be ( obviously using the maths to make it look realistic.) I have done a fair amount of research to help me create something that will be realistic, and i'm feeling quietly confident about the task. I will be going into University early Tomorrow morning to put my ball sequence into Dragon software to see what i have come up with.

At the moment i have drawn what is to be my main ball bounce, however, i would like to create a few different sequence by adding manipulating the original sequence. For example, i will add frames in and move frames around to see how it will effect the way the ball bounce, and then look at how it changed the character of the ball. From watching hundred of films, and short animations on Vimeo and YouTube, i'm confident you can create a huge diversity of emotions, and characters by changing tiny aspects of the way a character/something moves - and i just need to learn how to do this with a ball. My ball was a foam tennis ball, which had quite a generous bounce, nothing like a real tennis ball which would have a much higher second bounce with a more lively route, and different also to dropping a snooker ball, hardly any bounce with a roll at the end. So its important for me to get the bounce to look like the ball could be a foam tennis ball...

The images below are the routes of the three different balls i mentioned above:

The foam tennis ball (which was my ball) lost two thirds of its momentum after the first bounce, and then repetitively lost a third of the high after each bounce. If you were to put a personality to the ball i could define it as quite a sad bounce, it is very flat - and my theory is because the foam of the ball absorbs the impact of the bounce, rather then a tennis ball with a harder casing which can counteract stronger with the impact of each bounce. I would be interesting to see how it would change the feel of the bounce if i added more frames into the top of each bounce. I imagine that it would make the ball 
seem like it was made from a more harder substance, but i also think it may look add as if i kept the ball decreasing at the same rate with each bounce, it might look odd (it would not look realistic). If i added more frames to the bottom of each bounce it would make the ball bounce look the actual ball has more control over its own bounce. I think it would maybe make it seem like it is more alive, more like a character, rather then a ball bouncing.



The tennis ball that i bounced seemed to decrease by half of the height of the previous bounce every time. Due to the consistently higher height of the tennis ball bounce, it meant that the duration it took for the ball to bounce was much longer then the bounce of the foam ball which lost its momentum much faster. The bounce of the tennis ball seemed to be longer at the top of the bounce then the foam ball was, e.g. at the top of each bounce the tennis ball would have 7 over lapping frames and the foam ball is 5 frames at the top of each bounce. It would be really
interesting to squash the ball really flat at the bottom of  each bounce, i think that it would change the way you would see the ball. It would maybe seem more like a actual bouncy ball which have a exaggerated bounce, they seem to take much longer to reach the top height of their bounce, and fasten up as it starts its journey back down from the top of the bounce.

A snooker ball, being dense and heavy absorbs the impact of each bounce  and looses more energy then the other two balls which is why they loose their height dramatically. Due to their small size it means that they do get a small bounce. On contrast , a bowling ball which is similar to the foundations of a snooker ball but on a much larger scale, would have no bounce due to its size.... IF you bounced it on a hard surface. 

Now what i do find interesting in Ping Pong balls, its hollow like a tennis ball, its smaller then all the balls above, and its made from plastic, yet its the bounciest ball out of the three i have mentioned. From research i have found that the bounce of a ball depends on what it is made from, the size, and other unique properties. A ping pong ball is made from a special plastic called celluloid, their surface is stiff and springy and there for looses less energy with each bounce then the softer foam ball that i have to do my bounce for. Now if you bounced a ball on a softer surface like a carpet, a blanket, a trampoline the ping pong ball would loose all of its energy as it is absorbed into the softer surface. Where as a snooker ball or a bowling ball on a trampoline would have a much higher FIRST bounce.

 So, from studying the three balls above in detail and briefly looking at a ping pong ball, i can safely say that i think the capability of the bounce completely depends on the material, size and the surface it is dropped on. A hollow light weight ball will bounce much better on a hard surface then a solid ball due to their being less air resistance and in hand conserving their energy. I feel like after this weekend i can confidently imagine the bounce route of various balls, and i would be able to have a idea of how to animate the different balls and their cycle.

Wednesday 26 September 2012

Animation Principles L1. 25/9/12

Today i attended a class with Andy where he introduced the 'bouncing ball' project. We have to hand draw a ball bounce. We picked a random ball and had to time how long it took when we dropped the ball from a height of 50cm to stop bouncing. It too 2 seconds. We then had to time the time it took for the ball to..


1) hit the floor for the first bounce.
2)for the ball to bounce back up in the air after it first hit the floor.
3)to hit the floor again..

and so on until it came to a halt. We had to try and measure the amount that the height of the ball dropped with every bounce. From the original height of 50cm after the ball hit the floor on its first bounce it only reached the height of 16cm est. From studying the ball drop the ball seemed to decrease the height of the bounce by around two thirds every time. The ball we used was a foam tennis ball so it had a bit of bounce in it but due to the ball having no hard outer shell (like a tennis ball) the foam absorbs the impact from hitting the  table and looses momentum. Therefore i think that i would need to add more frames to the animation when the ball hits the table rather then when the ball reaches the top of the bounce.

We did some timing in class to try and get a basic understanding of how to work out how to time the frames, in a sense of how many drawings to draw and where. Some of the workings out from class are in the image about and i have done some other workings out and diagrams out side of the class room. I shall start experimenting with the actual drawing of the ball bounce once i feel confident with my workings out. I have a feeling it will be a lot of trial, error and correction. I am really excited to get stuck into it.