Assignment #1: Bouncing Ball Obstacle Course

Assigned: Thursday, Jan 5th, 2012
Due: Thursday, Jan 12th @ 3:00 PM

Resources:

• Ball rig to use with this assignment.
• Obstacle course set.
• Richard Williams Animator's Survival Kit (pg. 36-39)
• Example of Bouncing Ball Poses
• 458 Animation Exercises:
  1. Basic Animation Exercise
  2. Graph Editor Exercise
  3. Animation Principles

You will be animating a single bouncing ball with forward momentum from an orthographic side view. The ball falls into an obstacle course and eventually bounces/rolls to a halt.

Start by opening the provided set and importing the ball rig. You will see that the set consists of an obstacle course with an upper and lower level. Your ball must start on the upper level to the left of the red line. The ball can be treated as if it is a ping pong ball, bowling ball, or anything inbetween. However, whatever physical properties you choose the ball must not be overly squishy nor can it be floaty like a partially deflated balloon. The starting speed and trajectory of the ball is up to you as long as it bounces forward. (It can drop into frame, start on a ramp, etc.) Your ball should then fall into the lower level of the obstacle course and react appropriately to anything it touches. Animate the ball until it comes to a rest. Use the orthographic side view for your animation.

Extra Credit: Add an obstacle and animate your ball contacting it (wall, ramp, swinging arm, etc).

The overall goal is to produce a single, polished bouncing ball animation using your knowledge thus far. You may look at video reference or draw sketches if it helps, but you are not required to do so. These are topics we will cover in greater detail as the quarter progresses. Just experiment and get the motion to look good to the best of your ability.

There are two controls on the provided rig: the "ball_anim" is for both movement and rotation, while the "squash_anim" allows you to modify the direction and magnitude of the squash and stretch independent of the ball's position and rotation. This means that it is much easier to add/adjust squash and stretch without negatively impacting other portions of your animation. You should always key both controls on a given frame, and not just one without the other.

Think about the animation principles, particularly squash and stretch, ease-in ease-out, timing, and arcs. For this assignment you shouldn't see squash and stretch on the ball when playing at full speed but you should be still be able to feel it. Squash and stretch that spans too many frames will make the ball look like it is willing itself to jump. In general just use one frame for squash with a maximum of two frames for earlier bounces.

General Animation and Maya Tips

• Start with your "extreme" poses first! Get those right, then add breakdowns (poses further defining the motion between your extremes) as you need them.
• When defining poses for your ball you will want to key both controls on the same frame. If you stagger their keys (meaning, for example, that the ball_anim's keys don't line up with the squash_anim's keys), figuring out which key goes to which pose will become frustrating later and slow down the workflow. Keying all controls on the same frame is an important habit to start now, as the number of controls per rig will only increase from here.
• Make sure keys don't land on partial frames (for example, frame 3.14). If this happens it is usually the result of key scaling. To fix partial framed keys, select all of the problem keys in the timeline, right-click hold on the selection, and choose "Snap".
• Try not to spend too much time in the Graph Editor. Focus on what your animation looks like, not what the curves look like. Don't be afraid to add more keys or breakdowns.
• Save iterations! You especially want to save an iteration when all of your key poses are set, before moving on to clean up the graph editor and adding in-betweens (basically another word for breakdowns).
• The default playblast resolution is 1280x720, but for temporary playblasts it may be faster to lower the resolution to 640x360. Just be sure to change it back to the original resolution before turn in.
  
  

Turn-in Checklist

• MOTION CHECK-IN:
  • First iteration of the bouncing ball, stepped poses are fine (already playblasted!)
    
    
• Use .ma and not .mb
• Please name your files lastname_firstname_assignmentnumber_filename.* (example:
  doe_john_a1_bouncing_ball.ma)
• Turn your files into capstone3/cse464_wi12_turn_in/assignment_1
• One 1280x720 playblast of the render_cam orthographic side view. Use the One-Click Playblast button found on the Production Shelf to accomplish this.
• One Maya file for your bouncing ball.