My bouncing balls project

 

When I was given the brief to make four bouncing balls and upload them onto the internet it sounded simple enough. Famous last words.

We had to choose from Stop-motion, Digital 2D, and Hand Drawn 2D. I like hand drawn the most, so I went for that.

 

I decided to do a generic bouncing ball first. This was both a good idea and a mistake. It took up lots time I could have spent on other things but helped get me into get to grips with my limitations.

I did my animation mostly on ‘ones’. Partly out of vanity. And partly because I felt scared of trying to do all the maths to do twos properly.

 

That done I made my bowling ball animation. I think this was the best one out of the four “normal” balls I made. It had the correct weight and feel to it.

My Ping pong ball just seems to appear from nowhere and has a random-ish arc.

My Tennis Ball did not go well. Its bounces were too hard and its arc didn’t have enough spring in I now see the spongy nature of the ball would have given it a smooth final landing.

 

For my ball with a mind of its own. I wanted to do something special. I wanted to convey not just will but also thinking. I planned a series of motions that would show the ball bouncing around with increasing energy. I really liked this one. The animation was smooth and well timed, and it felt as alive as I hoped.

But it took too long time to do. I underestimated how hard I would find uploading this onto the Internet. So I went over time by 30 minutes. It was very distressing.

 

I regret not being able to do the optional exercises thanks to not having any spare time.

Even if I didn’t pull this off completely, I can at least be sure I gave this my all.