In this assignment we will be practicing basic animation by animating two different types of balls bouncing. Find two balls of different weights — the bigger the contrast in weight the better. You will be using these as reference. Watch how the balls bounce and try to replicate their behavior in Maya. You will be creating a Maya file for each part of this project. Each Maya file will contain both of your different types of ball.
For most cases, we will be animating in 30 frames per second, however by default Maya operates in 24 frames per second. To change the settings to 30, click the Animation Preferences button () at the bottom right of the screen. Go to the Settings category and change Time to NTSC (30 fps). To make sure that every new file you create is at 30 fps, go to File → New Scene (Options). Again, set Time to NTSC (30 fps). Maya will remember this once you Apply the change and new files will be created using 30 fps.
The first part of the project is to animate your two balls bouncing in place (Only up and down). Make sure you pay attention to your timing and be sure to include squash and stretch to exagerate the motion, but don't overdo it. Squash and strech are things that should be felt more than seen.
For the second part of this project, animate the two balls bouncing while moving forward. Pay close attention to the arcs of your balls. Make sure your balls rotate as well as translate and squash. Apply a checker texture to the balls to see the rotation clearly.
) at the bottom right of the screen. Go to the Settings category and change Time to NTSC (30 fps). To make sure that every new file you create is at 30 fps, go to File → New Scene (Options). Again, set Time to NTSC (30 fps). Maya will remember this once you Apply the change and new files will be created using 30 fps.
