Blender Bootstrap Animation Class

Got too clever with the IPO’s. Somehow I thought it would convey squash…

Version 2 of basic ball animation.http://www.clipsandscripts.com/training/basic_ball_timing_2.mov

Single frame touch/rebound, nicer? arcs. Hopefully it’s improved, but that’s why I’m here.

Pappy

@technojoe, That last cannonball looks very plausible.

@jcode, The ball is going everywhere. But that’s OK. You are learning to interpret the meaning of those IPO curves I guess. Try to set as few keyframes as possible. One at each touch-down and one at each highest points of the ball. Set the touch-down IPO points handle type to “Free”. Then you can adjust the handles to get nice acceleration and deceleration effects.

Here is a new heavy ball bounce animation. I added the additional difficulty of making the ball roll. It starts rolling the minute it first hit the ground and then it rolls to the stop.

@Pappy, Yup. That looks quite plausible.

Here is a hint as to how I work for those exercises.

I only do the first jump down in the 3D view. I set the first 2 keyframes there. Then I do all the rest in the IPO editor where I insert all the other keyframes there. I translate the IPO points to their proper frame and value there. I regularly run the animation to watch and evaluate the result as I progress. Here is the IPO editor window for my latest light ball bounce.

Attachments


ypoissant,

Thanks for posting the IPO screen shot. Mine looks different so I will take a screen shot when I get home tonight.

I can not seem to get those nice v’s in between the ball landing and going back up again. another thing I notoiced is the curve controling the speed does not show any keyframes on it. Very cool! Can you share how you were able to set that up?

Thanks
-j

Hey everybody, I have been wanting to learn animation for quite a while now. But I am one of those that jumped way to far ahead of myself, and would just get frustrated. So I want to join in with all of you on this if that is all right. :smiley:
I have one animation up on youtube now. Its just a normal ball bouncing. check it out when you get a chance and let me know what you think. I will work on getting some of the other types of bounces up there later today.
Also, I did it without the standard ball scene that you guys came up with. Hope that is all right.

My Normal Bouncy Ball

koots2, sure it does, one at the beginning and one at the end. You can’t see the handles because that curve isn’t selected for editing, its just those two little black dots. The nice v’s come from selecting the handle and typing h to let you move the handle ends separately.

As Orinoco pointed out, there are two keyframes on the ‘X’ curve controling the forward motion. When you work in the IPO editor, you can set and delete keyframes on a per channel basis. So I only added the necessary frames on the ‘Z’ channel curve. While when you add keyframes from the 3D view, it adds a keyframe on every channels of the transformations you select.

@G7Pro, Sure it is all right. Your bounciung ball looks very convincing. Not much to critique there.

And Here is a revised light bouncing ball. This time, I added a wall as an added level of difficulty.

Orinoco,
Maybe I am wrong but if you look at the red line you can only see the begining . and the end . on mine there is a . everywhere these is a movement so I have coraspnding .'s for every up and down the ball does. I will take a screen shot and send when I get home so you can see what I mean.

If I am thinking about this correctly what that means to me is you can change the speed of the ball moving from one side to the other without haveing to rekey each up and down. For me in my scene I am rekeying everything.

I might be readding too much into this and if that is the case. sorry:)

Yes! :yes: :yes: :yes: You can change the speed without having to rekey each bounce! In edit mode, select all those intermediate dots and erase them with x. You’ll wind up with one long smooth curve controlling the speed from beginning to end.

@G7Pro: welcome!

@koots2: Yeah, for stuff like this(or any animation) you can often lay down all the basic flow and movement in the IPO window… And not just for bouncing balls, this is pretty useful in walk cycles too, though its a bit more complicated.

I need to work out my technique, but I know that the IPO window is a great place to go If your timing or flow is feeling messy.

I decided to completely redo my bounce, this time with some sideways movement, here it is:

http://uploader.polorix.net//files/96/Animation%20Practice/Ball%20Bounce%20V4.mov

Hopefully looking better(though theres a tad too much hangtime at the first bounce)…The ending is the part Im not completely sold on, Id appreciate comments there… Or anywhere of course.

OK here are the tests for Ping Pong Ball and Tennis Ball I hope these help.

Tennis Ball off slight ramp: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6034258505741720451&hl=en

Tennis Ball drop:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7021680454030986023&hl=en

Ping Pong Ball off of slight ramp:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3021925457512201233&hl=en

Ping Pong Ball drop:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2843017568733972771&hl=en

I tried to make a more level test area this time.

Joe

As you guys can see I am clearly doing the ball IPO window incorrectly, this may explain why my ball seemed a bit jerky. Can someone please help me with the work flow so my IPO window looks like ypoissant’s

THanks!

Technojoe, Thanks for the references!!! That will be a big help to the group

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/4567/ipoballbk1.jpg

@free_ality: Looks good, I agree on the first bounce, a little too much hang time, the rest of the bounces seem maybe a little quick, and also seems like it might slow down a little more in the x- direction by the end.

@ypoissant: light ball looks great, maybe some thing to perfect about it though.
Heavy ball looks good too, but it comes back to the type of surface it is rolling on, because it seems to me that it would travel farther forward because of its weight. And the added role looks good also.

@G7pro: Welcome, and your animation looks good. the one thing I see, is that the first bounce seems to exit at a different angle than the other bounces, makes it look like it jumps forward.

@pappy: Looks good, maybe it slows down a little to fast.

I think We need a way of grading our work or a way of approving it, so we know when we can move on to something more difficult.

Joe

The end looks a little off because the ball doesn’t seem to slow down at all once it starts rolling.

I am not sure koots2. Some of your bounces are two much a like in LocZ. And maybe you could try to straighten LocX IPO curve and make it taper off too the end some.

Joe

@free_ality, I agree that the last bounces seem to arrive too quickly. It is like the first four bounces go together but the last bounces don’t follow the same gravity. Every bounce must be proportional to the previous one. So if the second bounce is 75% the height of the first one, then the third bounce must be 75% the height of the second one, etc. Same for the durations, they must be proportional.

Here is a new version of the light ball bounce hitting a wall and now rolling. I think that will be enough for a while.

@Technojoe and Orinoco and ypoissant: True and true and true, heres a revised version, smoothed out the bounces a bit and slow up at the end…

http://uploader.polorix.net//files/96/Animation%20Practice/Ball%20Bounce%20V5.mov

Better?

I am looking for help with the IPO window itself look at ypoissant, notice how his IPO does not have a ton of black dots on the x and y? Mine does. I don’t know how to key that in a clean manner. That’s what I am looking for help on, but thanks for the points.

Technojoe, Great idea about the grading. the trick is how do we move on as a group. I honestly feel doing some video tutorials on the basic parts would be a good start to helping newer people that come in at a later date. When I started this on the last thread, that is at least how I pictured it.

What do you guys think? I don’t mind doing a video tut, but right now I am not at a high enough level to feel proficient in making something people could learn from.

ypoissant,
I really like your latest ping pong off the wall example. Very cool! Maybe someother people could give some pointers but i think you nailed it. I would give that a 10/10

On a side note for grading. If we do a number score I think that might be better that A, B, C. Just a thought…

Don’t forget that you can also use “avail” from the “i” key. If you set the first key with only the wanted curves, this will automagically key only those curves.

Pappy