I’m trying to make an animation of someone hitting a ball with a backhand in tennis.
How do I do this?
That’s a loaded question fires! What are you making the animation for? Gaining experience in rigging? Animating? Modeling? Try to be more specific and provide a blend file if you’ve started on something or a sample of something you want to replicate.
Right.
I have a racket, and I’ve made the tennis ball’s movement. Right now the racket’s movement just some cheesy rotation…I’ll have pictures tomorrow when my render’s finished, but around half a metre away from the tennis ball, then swing, slightly orientated to left or right.
Could I somehow set the elbow joint (when I make an arm) as the center of rotation and just turn it a few degrees?
A bit like: http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38103000/gif/_38103507_back_hand.gif but ignoring that silly jumping at the last frame.
Tennis swing is composed of lots of motions; leg placement and weight transfer, hip rotation, shoulder rotation, arm and wrist, and head.
In general, the motion during the “hit” resembles whole arm pushing the ball in a set direction for accurate controlled aiming and trajectory. Power comes from leg, hip, shoulder and hitting the ball right on rackets sweet spot. There is wrist action up for topspin. Elbow is locked:
