Medium closeup
Closeup
I think this is the version I'm most satisfied with thus far. I lengthened the roll of the ball and tweaked the curves so that the speed was relatively consistent when coming out of the last bounce, and had it slow to a stop. The rotation was a little tricky to get right, and I'm still not sure it looks correct. I opted to have it roll for about one frame after it came to a stop, just very slightly, in the hopes that it would be a little more realistic. In reality the ball wouldn't stop moving at the exact point it stopped rotating... I think?
However, looking at the closeup shot, you can see a huge problem - it goes off-screen! It shouldn't be too difficult to fix (hopefully) - I should be able to use the fcurve editor. If I select all the x position keyframes and just drag them up/down to slightly alter the position, I should be able to re-frame it and bring it back into the centre.
Showing posts with label ball bounce. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ball bounce. Show all posts
Friday, 23 March 2012
Wednesday, 21 March 2012
Shuttlecock V1 & V2
Shuttlecock V1
Side
Medium closeup
(Sorry for the horrible Youtube upload — hit my daily Vimeo limit and I'm still waiting for it to reset...!)
For an initial test, I don't think it came out too badly - especially considering I was absolutely dreading doing the shuttlecock! It was done on a whim, mostly; there's precious little reference on youtube and the shuttlecocks I bought are useless cheap plastic things that don't bounce at all. So I'm having to make a lot of educated guesses as to the motion of the shuttlecock.
Obviously it's very rough so far! I tried to pay attention to the tilt of the feathers and ball, considering how the feathers hitting the floor would effect the rotation. It definitely needs more rotation - a shuttlecock is very bottom-heavy and it will always tilt so the ball points downwards. I'd like to have it swing downwards towards the end, just before it lands - perhaps having the feathers hit the floor and knocking the ball downwards to get it going.
I guess the first thing I'm noticing is that it doesn't really bounce very high, or enough times. It's quite a springy thing and if it weren't for the feathers scraping the ground and getting in the way it would probably bounce a fair bit. I'd like to animate more of that sort of thing - the ball trying to bounce but interrupted by the feathers.
Without decent reference it's hard to say whether it looks correct or not, so I think it's going to be very much a case of eyeballing it...!
Shuttlecock V2
Here, I've removed most of the rotation so I can focus on getting the bounces right. Maybe it's because there's less going on, but I don't like this version as much as the last one...! Maybe once I've started jazzing it up a bit it'll look a little nicer...
I'm less happy with the speed here, too. I actually delayed the shuttlecock's initial rotation after it strikes the ground the first time - I wanted to give the impression that it drags along the floor before rotating forward but, thinking about it, it probably doesn't make much sense. I think it would probably bounce first - unless it landed with the feathers quite close to the ground there's no reason for it to drag.
I'm not sure if the bounce is really high enough - the closer to the middle it bounces, the higher it goes. Unless I have it strike the ground at a slight angle it should probably go higher, but wouldn't travel as far. If it hits at an angle it won't go as high but it would probably travel much further. In the context of this animation I think it would be best for it to travel further.
I'll have to scurry off and do a few more thumbnails. I've been working a lot from my earlier sketches and improvising as I go along, which in all honesty I think might work better for this particular animation, as a lot of it is just eyeballing to see what looks right. Still, it won't hurt to have a solid foundation of what I want to do...
Side
Medium closeup
(Sorry for the horrible Youtube upload — hit my daily Vimeo limit and I'm still waiting for it to reset...!)
For an initial test, I don't think it came out too badly - especially considering I was absolutely dreading doing the shuttlecock! It was done on a whim, mostly; there's precious little reference on youtube and the shuttlecocks I bought are useless cheap plastic things that don't bounce at all. So I'm having to make a lot of educated guesses as to the motion of the shuttlecock.
Obviously it's very rough so far! I tried to pay attention to the tilt of the feathers and ball, considering how the feathers hitting the floor would effect the rotation. It definitely needs more rotation - a shuttlecock is very bottom-heavy and it will always tilt so the ball points downwards. I'd like to have it swing downwards towards the end, just before it lands - perhaps having the feathers hit the floor and knocking the ball downwards to get it going.
I guess the first thing I'm noticing is that it doesn't really bounce very high, or enough times. It's quite a springy thing and if it weren't for the feathers scraping the ground and getting in the way it would probably bounce a fair bit. I'd like to animate more of that sort of thing - the ball trying to bounce but interrupted by the feathers.
Without decent reference it's hard to say whether it looks correct or not, so I think it's going to be very much a case of eyeballing it...!
Shuttlecock V2
Here, I've removed most of the rotation so I can focus on getting the bounces right. Maybe it's because there's less going on, but I don't like this version as much as the last one...! Maybe once I've started jazzing it up a bit it'll look a little nicer...
I'm less happy with the speed here, too. I actually delayed the shuttlecock's initial rotation after it strikes the ground the first time - I wanted to give the impression that it drags along the floor before rotating forward but, thinking about it, it probably doesn't make much sense. I think it would probably bounce first - unless it landed with the feathers quite close to the ground there's no reason for it to drag.
I'm not sure if the bounce is really high enough - the closer to the middle it bounces, the higher it goes. Unless I have it strike the ground at a slight angle it should probably go higher, but wouldn't travel as far. If it hits at an angle it won't go as high but it would probably travel much further. In the context of this animation I think it would be best for it to travel further.
I'll have to scurry off and do a few more thumbnails. I've been working a lot from my earlier sketches and improvising as I go along, which in all honesty I think might work better for this particular animation, as a lot of it is just eyeballing to see what looks right. Still, it won't hurt to have a solid foundation of what I want to do...
Bowling ball V8
Version 8
I've done my absolute best with this. I've tweaked the arc, the timing — made it longer, shorter, higher, further, lower, shorter, every conceivable combination, and this is the one that looked the best. I don't think it's too horrendous — far from perfect, far from logical, but it's at a point that I'm relatively satisfied. Mostly.
The only remaining issues, for me, are with the rolling at the end. I think it could stand to roll a little further, and slow to a more gradual stop. It's a bit abrupt at the moment I think. So any further amendments will, for the time being, just be some final tweaks to the rotation and movement.
I've done my absolute best with this. I've tweaked the arc, the timing — made it longer, shorter, higher, further, lower, shorter, every conceivable combination, and this is the one that looked the best. I don't think it's too horrendous — far from perfect, far from logical, but it's at a point that I'm relatively satisfied. Mostly.
The only remaining issues, for me, are with the rolling at the end. I think it could stand to roll a little further, and slow to a more gradual stop. It's a bit abrupt at the moment I think. So any further amendments will, for the time being, just be some final tweaks to the rotation and movement.
Bowling ball V7
Several slight variations on this one; trying to see which timing works better!
Version 7.1
First, general changes. As stated previously I've slightly altered the arc of the bounce. I think it's looking a lot better now! I also kept the ball stuck to the ground for just one frame before it bounces back up again. I had to alter the last (tiny) bounce in order to stop it looking too jerky - I had to increase the height of the ball very slightly and allow it enough time to come back down so that it wouldn't look like a weird juddery glitch, whilst still being quick enough to give the impression that it's barely more than a vibration. I don't know if I succeeded...!
The first thing I noticed was that the bounce itself was still slightly bothering me. With the new arc, it seemed even less weighty than before. It seemed to move too smoothly through the arc - it was a little too uniform. So I tried to increase the spacing between the impact with the ground and the first frame of the bounce, hoping that if it was a little faster it would appear to have struck the floor with more force.
Version 7.2
With the new timing, I think the ball certainly "feels" heavier as it bounces off the floor, but the drop from the bounce seems too slow. I think maybe I got it backwards and should use the timing for the climb for the drop, and revert the climb back to its original speed? I decided to try doing the same thing for the drop's timing as well.
Version 7.3
As I suspected, though, it made the whole thing too choppy. The ball is hardly in the air at all and it really needs to "hover" there for just a second as it fights against gravity.
I think I'll try reversing what I did for 7.2 - having the ascension of the bounce at the slower speed and the decline faster and see how it looks...
Version 7.1
First, general changes. As stated previously I've slightly altered the arc of the bounce. I think it's looking a lot better now! I also kept the ball stuck to the ground for just one frame before it bounces back up again. I had to alter the last (tiny) bounce in order to stop it looking too jerky - I had to increase the height of the ball very slightly and allow it enough time to come back down so that it wouldn't look like a weird juddery glitch, whilst still being quick enough to give the impression that it's barely more than a vibration. I don't know if I succeeded...!
The first thing I noticed was that the bounce itself was still slightly bothering me. With the new arc, it seemed even less weighty than before. It seemed to move too smoothly through the arc - it was a little too uniform. So I tried to increase the spacing between the impact with the ground and the first frame of the bounce, hoping that if it was a little faster it would appear to have struck the floor with more force.
Version 7.2
With the new timing, I think the ball certainly "feels" heavier as it bounces off the floor, but the drop from the bounce seems too slow. I think maybe I got it backwards and should use the timing for the climb for the drop, and revert the climb back to its original speed? I decided to try doing the same thing for the drop's timing as well.
Version 7.3
As I suspected, though, it made the whole thing too choppy. The ball is hardly in the air at all and it really needs to "hover" there for just a second as it fights against gravity.
I think I'll try reversing what I did for 7.2 - having the ascension of the bounce at the slower speed and the decline faster and see how it looks...
Bowling ball V6
Version 6
Side
Medium closeup
I slightly altered the bounce so that there was a little more delay between the peak and the drop. I think having a slightly "choppier" drop works well for stationary balls, but when you start to introduce motion and arcs it looks a bit weird - you can't have the ball suddenly clip to the floor whilst maintaining the slow and steady forward motion.
I think it's looking alright, but I'm not too happy with it. I don't think it really moves enough in an arc, especially on the first bounce - it seems to hit an invisible wall then suddenly drop down. That's possibly why it looks so odd on the medium closeup view? I need to smooth that out and perhaps increase its forward movement just a tad.
It's only noticeable on the side view, but the ball's initial drop is once again bothering me. I think it starts too quickly - I need to ease it out of that forward shove before it drops.
Going back to one of my reference videos, I also noticed something about the second bounce:
You can't really notice it without going frame by frame, but the ball actually remains on the ground for an extra frame before it bounces back up into its last, tiny jump. I'll need to look at incorporating this into my own animation I think, see how it looks.
Side
Medium closeup
I slightly altered the bounce so that there was a little more delay between the peak and the drop. I think having a slightly "choppier" drop works well for stationary balls, but when you start to introduce motion and arcs it looks a bit weird - you can't have the ball suddenly clip to the floor whilst maintaining the slow and steady forward motion.
I think it's looking alright, but I'm not too happy with it. I don't think it really moves enough in an arc, especially on the first bounce - it seems to hit an invisible wall then suddenly drop down. That's possibly why it looks so odd on the medium closeup view? I need to smooth that out and perhaps increase its forward movement just a tad.
It's only noticeable on the side view, but the ball's initial drop is once again bothering me. I think it starts too quickly - I need to ease it out of that forward shove before it drops.
Going back to one of my reference videos, I also noticed something about the second bounce:
You can't really notice it without going frame by frame, but the ball actually remains on the ground for an extra frame before it bounces back up into its last, tiny jump. I'll need to look at incorporating this into my own animation I think, see how it looks.
Bowling ball V5
Version 5
Side
Medium close-up
I know, I said I was going to try spacing out the bounce... but I just ended up getting confused. The speed of the bounce was bothering me - my keyframes were all over the place, and after spending the better part of 45 minutes trying to tweak what I already had, I just ended up saying 'screw it' and doing the entire thing from scratch.
I still don't know. I think the speed is looking a little better - but again, the bounce - I think it's just a little too choppy. I think it needs to ease very slightly into the peak of the bounce and then hold it for just a fraction of a second. The only danger with that is then it might look too slow?!
I seem to be having a lot of difficulty expressing any form of weight with this. Or is it just me?
Side
Medium close-up
I know, I said I was going to try spacing out the bounce... but I just ended up getting confused. The speed of the bounce was bothering me - my keyframes were all over the place, and after spending the better part of 45 minutes trying to tweak what I already had, I just ended up saying 'screw it' and doing the entire thing from scratch.
I still don't know. I think the speed is looking a little better - but again, the bounce - I think it's just a little too choppy. I think it needs to ease very slightly into the peak of the bounce and then hold it for just a fraction of a second. The only danger with that is then it might look too slow?!
I seem to be having a lot of difficulty expressing any form of weight with this. Or is it just me?
Sunday, 18 March 2012
Bowling ball drop V3 & V4
Hooray for Vimeo processing!
Version 3
Here, I've adjusted the timing very slightly so that the ball doesn't take so long to ease into the drop. As a result, the ball enters the frame much earlier. I think this speed's better, but I'm not sure about the bounces. They seem too... "floaty" to me. I can't put my finger on what it is, exactly. I think that the ball drops from the peak of its first bounce a bit too slowly and doesn't seem to have much impact with the ground. It's a heavy object - the drop should probably be quite snappy or choppy to really give it the feeling of weight.
Version 4
Version 4
I wondered if spacing the ball out would help me to figure out why the bounces look a bit weird. I think they look a little better now; still slightly floaty? I'm not sure if trying to add the roll at this stage was a bad idea - it's easy to get distracted by too much going on. In this case though I think it might help - makes anything that looks off stick out a lot more.
Anyway. I don't think the ball really rolls or moves far enough. If it's going to roll, I think it probably needs to roll properly - if it was dropped straight down it probably wouldn't roll at all, like in the reference video - so it's probably only going to look right if I animate it rolling as if it's been dropped with a bit of a push. If that makes sense.
I think I could make this version work if I were to add just a little more rotation to the ball, but I might experiment with making the bounces and rolling a little more prominent, as if the ball has been dropped with some forward force.
Bowling ball drop V1, V2
I hate Vimeo! It's hard to review these things properly when it takes so long to process... so here's a bulk post containing the first three revisions of the bowling ball drop!
Version 1
First one using the timing and spacing on the graph almost to a T (save for some minus spacing differences). Approximately 13 frames to drop, then 4 frames to bounce and fall again. It looks alright, but it's far too slow. That can be rectified very easily with some simple keyframe adjustments.
Version 2
Version 1
First one using the timing and spacing on the graph almost to a T (save for some minus spacing differences). Approximately 13 frames to drop, then 4 frames to bounce and fall again. It looks alright, but it's far too slow. That can be rectified very easily with some simple keyframe adjustments.
Version 2
In the second version, I attempted to alter the speed of the initial drop. The bounce speed remains relatively unchanged. Now that I look at it from this angle it's not as bad as I thought, but the main reason I wasn't happy with this one was the drop speed. The ball was far too slow coming out of its highest point - it hung in the air for a very long time before hitting its max speed. Of course, in the render output, you won't see the ball begin to fall at all - you'll only see it enter the frame at high speed. So that might actually be more effective - I may come back to this version's timing, but I tried a third amendment just to see whether it would be any better. Vimeo is processing it currently, so... see you in half an hour.
My current concern with this is how simple it is. I know it's not the point to make it overly complex, but I can't help but feel it might look a bit "lazy" if it's just a straight up-and-down movement. I'm seriously considering trying to get the ball to roll across the ground. I think I'll attempt it anyway, just to see how it looks, but there's no reason I have to use it in the final render if I can't get it right (but that would be giving up...)
Bowling ball planning
Tremble before the might of my amazing graph:
I basically very roughly traced the outline of the falling bowling ball to get an idea of the speed/timing of the drop. As you can see it's a very steady rate of acceleration; obviously it's a very literal trace, so I don't know how well it will convert to animation. I can always tweak it a bit and remove frames if need be.
The blue and green balls on the left show the motion of the ball's first bounce. It doesn't go very high - the climb (blue) has a big gap and then they're very cluttered together near the top (seems to hover for a couple of frames). In contrast, the decline (green) is very evenly spaced. There's another, miniscule bounce after that one (hardly moves at all) but I wasn't willing to waste much more time tracing that one...!
It's pretty rough but... hopefully it'll give me a starting point.
It took me far, far longer to do that than I'd hoped. I hate this computer.
Bowling ball drop footage
Getting hold of and dropping a bowling ball myself isn't really too practical, so I've been poking around online. Fortunately it's a fairly basic exercise in animation so there's plenty of pretty clear reference footage to use!
It's quite interesting to note how the ball rolls after being dropped in one video, but not in the other. I'm guessing it's because in the first video the ball is given more of a push forward as it's being dropped, whereas in the second it's simply released with his fingers and so drops straight down.
It's a bit difficult to determine the height from which it's dropped, but I wouldn't think it's much more than a metre. The ball hits the floor quite quickly but doesn't seem to accelerate as fast as the tennis ball - it actually seems to have quite a steady rate of motion. It hits the ground after about 10 frames - the same as the tennis ball - and bounces just once or twice (the second bounce is tiny, the ball barely leaves the floor) before rolling away.
I'll probably do a couple of different versions - one without the roll, and one with the roll, to see what looks best.
Tennis ball bounce V13
All work and no play makes Alex a dull tennis ball
All balls and no tennis makes Alex a tennis ball
Ball tennis and no balls make tennis a ball
balllllsss
Medium close up
Oh goodness. I've fixed up the ball's rotation slightly, so now it begins to rotate after the first bounce. I think it's looking alright? I'm not sure. I still don't know if I'm terribly happy with it, and the more I look at it the worse it looks.
I think, in all honesty, I'm going to have to put a lid on this one for the time being - at least until I can get some outside feedback. It's still not brilliant, but there's only so much I can do with it using my own tired eyes. I'm feeling quite aware of the looming bowling ball and shuttlecock tasks, and if it's taken me this long to get a tennis ball going, I think I'm going to need to start getting on with those as soon as possible.
I'll more than likely end up coming back to it after I can get some feedback from others, but for now I think I can safely tuck it away.
Saturday, 17 March 2012
Tennis ball bounce V11 & V12
Going to have to make this the last one for tonight. I should do a bit more and try to finish it off but I'm incredibly tired, and as previously evidenced, I make stupid mistakes when I'm tired.
I actually think the rotation on this one looks alright! It needs to roll just a teensy bit more towards the end, I think, but it's not too bad (as long as you don't think too hard about realistic physics). The problem comes when I try to apply squash and stretch...
It's the same rotation, just with additional squash and stretch on most of the bounces. I don't know why - maybe it's just me - but it looks really odd to me now. The way that it doesn't spin at all on the first bounce somehow seems very out of place when I add in the squash. Like the force of the contact with the ground should start it rotating? I don't even know! I've been staring at this too long. I've started to go blind.
I also noticed one horrible problem, I've managed to break the rig somehow - probably during my cock-up with the rotation keyframes. If you look closely:
The position control object has magically floated away from the ball and now sits somewhere in front of it. I have absolutely no idea what's happened - I don't recall the point it happened. In fact, I only just noticed when I went to adjust the position to maintain the ball's contact with the ground after applying the squash. It doesn't seem to have broken the animation at all but I'm starting to worry that moving it back into the proper place (when/if I can figure out how to do that) will mess things up. And that will be a whole day wasted. Note to self to ask Jon how to correct it.
Doh... I'm stupid.
Anyhow. I'm going to try one more time to correct the rotation tomorrow and polish things off a bit, then I'm going to need to move on for a while. I can only stare at this silly green ball for so long...!
Tennis ball bounce V10
Using the video I shot as a guide, I thought I might try and be really clever and use a quick diagram I drew as a Rotoscope image within Softimage.
I think it's actually looking a lot better. The biggest issue that I can see now is the rotation - it looks completely wrong, and nothing I'm doing seems to be fixing it. I've tried speeding it up, slowing it down, changing the points it starts rotating - nothing. It just looks weird. I think that the spin just seems to change speed quite randomly - for example, towards the end it doesn't spin much at all but then suddenly rotates quite a lot. I don't know. I'm really tired and I've been staring at this far too long. I'm starting to go blind.
I also noticed that I made a huge cock up and set the rotation keyframes on the translation control - I have absolutely NO idea how I managed that as I was 110% certain that I was selecting the rotation control each and every time. There was one point where, thinking I was being clever, I had two dope sheets open - one locked to display the translation keyframes, so that I would be able to see both sets simultaneously. It's probable that as I was keyframing the rotation control it was getting added to the translation dope sheet as well.
I'm erasing all the rotation keyframes from the translation control now; I just hope I've not somehow completely broken the rig...
I also noticed that I made a huge cock up and set the rotation keyframes on the translation control - I have absolutely NO idea how I managed that as I was 110% certain that I was selecting the rotation control each and every time. There was one point where, thinking I was being clever, I had two dope sheets open - one locked to display the translation keyframes, so that I would be able to see both sets simultaneously. It's probable that as I was keyframing the rotation control it was getting added to the translation dope sheet as well.
I'm erasing all the rotation keyframes from the translation control now; I just hope I've not somehow completely broken the rig...
Tennis ball reference footage
Finally got my greasy mitts on a tennis ball that bounces properly. How exciting! I've now been able to shoot my own reference footage for the ball, which I hope will make my life just a little bit easier...
(Please excuse the mess. I've not hoovered yet - I swear I'm not always this grotty)
I did a number of drops, just to get an average. I'm guessing the carpeted surface may have affected the bounce somewhat; but I'm just going to say it makes it more like the grassy surface on the scene file!
I don't really know which shot I'm going to use for reference. It's tempting to do one that's a bit different instead of a generic bounce, but there's the danger that it wouldn't look right when viewed through one of Jon's preset cameras. I'm probably just going to stick with the last bounce on the first video... it's a bog-standard looking bounce, but it seems a fairly safe option. Plus I'm getting a bit sick of tennis balls by this point!
I did a number of drops, just to get an average. I'm guessing the carpeted surface may have affected the bounce somewhat; but I'm just going to say it makes it more like the grassy surface on the scene file!
I don't really know which shot I'm going to use for reference. It's tempting to do one that's a bit different instead of a generic bounce, but there's the danger that it wouldn't look right when viewed through one of Jon's preset cameras. I'm probably just going to stick with the last bounce on the first video... it's a bog-standard looking bounce, but it seems a fairly safe option. Plus I'm getting a bit sick of tennis balls by this point!
Sunday, 11 March 2012
Tennis ball bounce V7
Another entirely unsuccessful attempt to procure a tennis ball today. You wouldn't have thought they'd be so damn difficult to get hold of. Looks like I'm going to have to exercise my imagination a little bit longer...
I've sorted out weird jumping-forward problem from the previous post, so now the ball rolls forward at the end fairly nicely. I made a few more timing adjustments as well, speeding up the drop on the second bounce. I also slightly adjusted the height that the ball reaches on its first and second bounce - it seemed to go a little too high before, so I dropped it down just a tad and it seems a little better. I think the bounces are slowly getting there - though I think the third bounce (and perhaps the entire set of small bounces) are a bit too slow, but I'm not entirely sure? Might look at speeding them up. This is hard without reference.
The other big change is the addition of a little squashing and rotation. The ball squashes a lot more than I'd originally intended - at first, I only squashed it a very tiny amount and because the impact with the ground is so quick and instantaneous it didn't really 'read.' I slightly adjusted the curve so that the ball would remain close to the ground for a fraction of a second longer and also increased the amount of squash - looking at the capture it stands out far more than I thought it would, so I may reduce it slightly. Tennis balls are pretty firm!
I'm not sure if the rotation is at all accurate - probably not! I think it looks alright though (so far at least) so I'm probably not going to do too much tweaking to it, unless necessary.
The other issue that probably isn't apparent from the angle of the shot is that the ball isn't actually touching the ground when it bounces. It's an issue I encountered whilst adding the squash to the ball - I could have fixed it straight away, but I decided to talk about it on the blog a bit first. I don't really know why. Maybe because it gives me an excuse to post some screen captures (which I've been neglecting so far)...
Basically, the rig seems to be set up in such a way that locks all its transformations to a local axis. The ball's centre point is positioned right on the bottom of the ball, so that when scaled along the y axis it squashes quite nicely. However, when a rotation is applied to the ball, the centre point follows - i.e. it's no longer on the bottom of the ball. This means that it scales from a slightly different point, meaning that the bottom of the ball is no longer touching the ground (as seen above).
It's not a big problem at all and I don't have any wonderfully clever solution - I'm just going to move the ball down so it's back in contact with the ground. I just thought it was worth talking about.
Maybe I'm just boring.
Saturday, 10 March 2012
Tennis ball bounce V6
Are you bored of me yet?!
More timing adjustments! I used the region select tool to bring everything closer together so it's a little faster. I think it's looking better now actually - but there seems to be a weird jump right at the end. The ball seems to kind of... lurch forward. Not quite sure what's happening there - think it might have had something to do with the fact that I neglected to realise that I used the region select tool on the fcurves instead of the dope sheet. Ordinarily this wouldn't have been a problem, but I had it set to "isolate curve" so I only re-timed the keyframes on the y axis, so I reckon that the keyframes on the X axis are just a little out of sync. Hopefully it shouldn't be too difficult to fix...
Once that's all been corrected, I'm going to start looking at applying a little squash and stretch to the ball. Not too much, just enough to kind of emphasize the impact with the ground and the springy nature of this ball. Hopefully it will also help to highlight further problems with the timing and such.
More timing adjustments! I used the region select tool to bring everything closer together so it's a little faster. I think it's looking better now actually - but there seems to be a weird jump right at the end. The ball seems to kind of... lurch forward. Not quite sure what's happening there - think it might have had something to do with the fact that I neglected to realise that I used the region select tool on the fcurves instead of the dope sheet. Ordinarily this wouldn't have been a problem, but I had it set to "isolate curve" so I only re-timed the keyframes on the y axis, so I reckon that the keyframes on the X axis are just a little out of sync. Hopefully it shouldn't be too difficult to fix...
Once that's all been corrected, I'm going to start looking at applying a little squash and stretch to the ball. Not too much, just enough to kind of emphasize the impact with the ground and the springy nature of this ball. Hopefully it will also help to highlight further problems with the timing and such.
Tennis ball bounce V4 & V5
Vimeo takes so long to process my videos that by the time it's done, I've already done another version. Ho hum...
Massively adjusted the arcs on the ball. It certainly looks better, but I don't know if it's at all tennis ball-like? I like the path of the motion a lot more, it's a lot smoother, but there are still issues with the timing. It's far too slow overall and there's no sense of force, or of acceleration/deceleration as the ball rises and falls. Again, these are all things that can be refined easily with the fcurve editor and the dope sheet.
I managed to tweak the ending so that the ball continues rolling for just a little bit after the last bounce. Rather than individually keyframing the horizontal motion between each bounce, as I had been before, I set the ball's final resting position on one keyframe right at the end. The ball could then continually move forward and would ease into the final keyframe right at the end in accordance with just one fcurve handle, saving me having to ensure that the flow of the curve was smooth between multiple keyframes.
It struck me that it would probably make more sense to take my captures using one of the cameras that the final render will be captured from. What looks alright from a flat, side-on view can look totally different (often broken) from another perspective - so working this way will help me to make sure that my final animation looks decent from the required perspective.
Other than that, not too much change. I've altered the curves slightly and tried to make adjustments to the timings so that the ball spends just a little less time in the air - I've shunted the keyframes a tiny bit closer together to try and improve the speed, but it still seems off to me. Something about the whole thing looks really, really wrong but I just can't put my finger on what. It almost looks like it bounces too much, or too many times? Something about the second and third bounce, I think... It might be the speed, again - it's just too slow. It takes too long to get from the apex of one bounce to the next.
This would all be so much easier if I had my own reference footage.
This would all be so much easier if I had my own reference footage.
Tennis ball bounce V3
The ball now bounces across the screen rather than a straight line. It's definitely much easier to watch and, hopefully, to critique.
The problems become more apparent now that it's spaced out. Working backwards from the most obvious things, there are problems with the trajectory of the ball - towards the end it kind of lurches forward before coming to a very sudden halt which looks a bit odd. The ball shouldn't stop moving as soon as the last bounce occurs - it should probably still roll around or continue moving across the floor for just a little bit before slowing to a stop.
The timing in general seems to be a problem. The ball, to me, looks a bit weighty - it still doesn't have the energy and power of an actual tennis ball. I still don't think that it bounces high enough - potentially, it could just be a timing thing. If I increase the speed of its ascension it might look a little better. Tennis balls are fairly light and springy - they don't tend to fall too fast but bounce off surfaces with considerable force and speed, so I definitely think it needs to accelerate faster in order to capture that "springiness."
Tennis ball arc research
Thinking about spacing the tennis ball out so that it's not bouncing up and down in a straight line, I had a look back at some of the videos to try and get to grips with the pattern of the arcs after the ball first hits the ground.
Using the same videos as reference, I took the frames where the ball was at its lowest and highest points, dropped the transparency (acting as a sort of onion skin) and, from there, was able to loosely scribble the path of the arc that the ball took.
Forgive the horrible scribbly lines... I'm running Windows through an emulator which doesn't have native tablet support...!
Anyway, as you can see, the ball takes a sharp arc upwards but doesn't travel very far away from its original position. Each successive high point of the ball almost overlaps its previous downward path.
Using the same videos as reference, I took the frames where the ball was at its lowest and highest points, dropped the transparency (acting as a sort of onion skin) and, from there, was able to loosely scribble the path of the arc that the ball took.
Forgive the horrible scribbly lines... I'm running Windows through an emulator which doesn't have native tablet support...!
Anyway, as you can see, the ball takes a sharp arc upwards but doesn't travel very far away from its original position. Each successive high point of the ball almost overlaps its previous downward path.
Slight difference in this one, the ball doesn't drop straight down after he drops it - presumably it's a bit windy or something - but usually, the ball will pretty much drop straight down, providing there's no other force acting upon it. The ball will be propelled slightly forward after its initial contact with the ground and will start to bounce away from its original position. Again, you can see it's quite a steep climb, but it doesn't really move very far away.
I also found this interesting image floating around online:
A stroboscopic/high-speed capture of... a bouncing tennis ball! It demonstrates the path of the ball very nicely... and you can even see the rotation. Interestingly, as the ball loses power, the arcs appear to get a bit wider and the ball travels slightly further. The bounce also appears to be a little slower, judging from the spacing, not quicker as I'd originally thought. (No idea why... thinking about it logically, it makes no sense. I suppose that if you just watch a ball being dropped because it's bouncing lower and lower it appears faster?)
Anyway! Very useful stuff, so hopefully I can now make a bold attempt at spacing out my animation and getting it to look a little nicer.
Friday, 9 March 2012
Tennis ball bounce V2
Redone ever-so slightly. I've tweaked the positions of a few keyframes and curve slopes to increase the hangtime of the first two bounces. I think the whole thing's looking a bit too slow overall, feels a little sluggish somehow. I don't know how much of it looks weird due to the lack of squash and stretch - I think that, once I've put that in there, it might start to look a little better. As I said before the strict up-and-down movement is problematic. I find it quite hard to look at and analyse for some reason - my eyes tracing the same path again and again in quick succession make it quite hard to read so it's a little difficult to pick out what's up with it.
I think the last series of bounces (the really small ones) are probably still a little sharp. They don't hang in the air at all - I don't know if tennis balls do that? As they lose energy, do they drop from the peak of their jump much more quickly? All things I'd failed to consider beforehand; back to the videos...
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