Ball Squash and Stretch

Last week we were using flash to create some squash and stretch animations, but Phil told us that we could create them using Maya instead. So i went about creating my basic ball animations. My first ball was a soft foam ball. I chose this because i knew i could demonstrate a better squash and stretch than with a harder ball.

I left the classroom with a stopwatch and timed the points where the ball bounced and the time inbetween bounces. From these times i then blocked out the animation by putting in basic movenment keyframes and began adding the right level of squash to the object. This was a little harder, as the ball was too fast to see the proper thickness of the squash so i had to estimate as close as i could.

   

For the second ball, i used a basketball bounce reference which i found on youtube. Compared to the previous ball, there was alot more resistance and very little room for the squash mechanic, however i followed the video reference and create a very brief animation, using the end of the internet clip as my main focus.

Here is the final animation.

This week sam introduced us to the basics of flash and explained how a flash animation works. It is basically a symbol or object that follows a certain path and has different pictures taken of it called frames that get put together to create the impression of movement. As a demonstration she showed us some of her work and some drawings that she had of drawings she had created for the goofy movie and showed us how each picture changes slightly to create a brief scene.

She talked about the aspects of squash and stretch. Everything which is made up of organic matter and un-solid material has a certain volume that must constantly be maintained. This is most obvious with cartoon characters. When something stretches, it gets thin and long and when something impacts or gets crushed etc. it must be short and fat. This principle is a key aspect of animation.

She gave us some tasks and gave us a different variety of balls to bounce and see the difference in volume with thier squash and stretch. I had a bouncy yellow childs ball and a ping pong ball. I bounced them and timed how long it took for each one to come to a standstill. The squidgy ball i threw at the wall showing external force and timed the rebound and how long it took to stop. The ping pong ball i just dropped.

I took a ball on flash and created a practice animation with an exagerated squash and stretch so that it demonstrated how it worked properly.

                 

After doing this as my first animation, it was alot clearer at which point the object squashes and stretches. From this i started to creaste some small animations to show the different types of ball and demonstrate the different bounces.