Completely irrelevant post on my part but: The Modern Galileo
It had to be said.
Thanks for the info. I have incorporated all of it into this…or most…still no settle b/c I still have not perfected it yet(or perfected as much as possible yet) 
Link: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18498207/0000-0100.flv
What do you guys think? Did i go backward, or am i moving forward?
What do you mean by modern Galileo?
I should have seen this coming, hmm?
Dons scholarly attire
Monsieur Galileo Galilei was the scientist who first performed the famous ball dropping experiment from the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
—> More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo
(Here we have a young man in our modern day world chucking softballs and miscellaneous other things - perhaps a somewhat vague comparison).
In any case, I digress. Back to the topic at hand: if I’m not mistaken, there is definitely progress (I could quip that there is always progress since we can’t go back in time; or not). I would suggest that if you are having some trouble showing the physics involved, exaggerate them. I’m sure that helps. Say for example, the ball deforms more than it should, the ground shakes more than it should - stuff like that. It seems to aid my comprehension.
Or maybe I’ve been watching far too many flash animations for my own good and should remain silent.
I always knew him as the guy who believed that the earth revolved around the sun, and not vise versa contrary to people’s beliefs at the time. I forgot that aspect about him:no:…anyhow:eyebrowlift:.
I have become some what stuck in the little details, as in rotation again! But this time is for another problem all together. I have always dealt with rotation as a thing that I just feel( sometimes making it as simple as two keys), but know i would like to have a few pointers about it as well, b/c in my opinion the rotation tends to make or break most animations. I see this greatly in my work as well as other people’s online.
I would like to leave this thread with complete and utter mastery over the subject! :yes:
I am so close I can almost taste it!
Bounce with out rotations: https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/Public/no%20rotations.flv?w=0658521f
Just feels better without any rotations, but when they are added the animation takes a nose dive! 
Let’s try approaching this problem from a slightly different angle. Someone once told me that in animation, we want to achieve a semblance of realism, but not realism itself (since it isn’t a simulation). Keeping that in mind, let’s consider what it is you want to achieve.
Your objective here is to make an animation of a bouncing ball (and potentially bouncing, ricocheting, deflected et cetera objects). Thus far, you have come to realise that there exists a certain correlation between the ball, its rotation, and its bounce. These are the finer details, if you will. Of these three, the bounce of the ball is by far the most important aspect. It is the primary action you wish to show, and if I may say so, you have that down nicely.
Now, onwards. We come to the secondary actions, which are no more than embellishments, if you come to think of it. The ball’s deformation comes next in the hierarchy and is in my opinion more important than it’s rotation. The extent of the ball deforming at the moment of impact gives your viewer some very important pieces of information; is the ball soft or is it hard? Is the ball elastic or plastic? Does the author know what s/he does (shrug)?
In rotating the ball, you can try setting it to the same direction in which the ball is moving. What you need to convey is your understanding of the ball’s rotational mechanics - which leads me to believe it might look better if it were slower, than faster (erring on the side of safety). However, now that I’ve come to think of it, perhaps rotation is the one feature most firmly rooted in aesthetics. Which essentially means, if you can cheat it, cheat it. As I’ve stressed once above, it’s all in the semblance (well, more or less, for things here and there).
Hope that helps and good luck,
Zach
P.S: I wasn’t able to access the file, so you might want to look into that. It might just be me though, so maybe someone else can chip in to tell you whether it works or not. Gives me a (403) error.
Sorry i have not replied in so, long but i have had SAT prep! :spin:
Well, the thing about squash and stretch is this, at least to me, i feel it will make my animations too cartoony iff i rely on that to perfect it…ya no?
I want to do huge action scenes like Advent Children(superb animation) and dead Fantasy…(okay animation). They all do not have any sqush and stretch by deformation at least. You know what i mean, right?
I will do squash and stretch so do not get me wrong, but i would prefer for it to be more of like the icing on the cake; not the the dough… <<–LAME JOKE TAKEN TOO FAR, b/c im nerdy! :rolleyes:
Anyhow i took it back again from walking animations to ball animations to ball rolling, yea i said it rolling. Simple yet deadly if done incorrectly!
So i wanted to take some time to see what you 
thought about it, or anyone else.
Oh, and the file did not work b/c i removed it for some reason…
Rolling ball: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18498207/0000-0100.flv
Thank You for bringing to my attention semblance, as well as the hierarchy.
ttyl thx!
You may c alot of smiles in my posts, and thats b/c i luv simlies!:o;):eyebrowlift::spin: