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.
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