advancing backwards - bouncy ball

Ooo. nice. Nice timing for the most part. Maybe give the ball a little less hang time.

The ending of that bounce looks a lot better than the first half.

You can hardley notice the squash on the first few bounces. I suggest holding the squash frames a little more.

Also, after contact with the ground the next stretch frame(when it is bouncing up) should not be in contact with the ground. That is also contributing to the lack of squash. There are 2 identical stretch frames right next to eachother so all we see are the two stretched frames.

It's a good start Rach, but a little too much stretch. It's starting to feel like a water balloon rather than a ball. It's going into it's stretch a few frames too soon. The ball could be half as stretched as your most extreme one. Also the ball can start stretching about halfway down it's arc. That should solve the water balloon look.

Also like Blink said, the ball has a bit too much hang time, and/or goes up and down too fast. You also might want to try holding the squash frame for 2 frames. It seems too fast. Give it a try, it might or might not work.

Keep up the good work.

Aloha,
the Ape

Good start but... When you get back to your bounce you need to place a stage for the ball to bounce off of. The ease-in, ease-out will help fix the look as for the height of the ball boucne. Deforming the ball is another issue, I could not see any and it will help give the ball the appearance of shifting direction and show that it did hit something.

dialled back the squash & stretch, held the 'squash' for 2 frames, deleted the 'contact' frame on the upwards bounce

thanks to everybody for feedback!

It looks really nice, for a ball bouncing. :D

Time now to move on, I would like to suggest that you do morphing next. I know the urge is to jump into walking but I feel that exercise should be done later. You should pick two simple shapes to start with and make the magic happen.

This looks so much better Rach. The ball looks so much more solid. I think you have the timing down on it but the spacing could still use a little work. I think the ball is still dropping a bit too fast. It almost feels like the ball is being sucked downward. The 3rd bounce seems to work the best but the rest drop a bit fast.

Also I think you can get away with one contact frame for the third and fourth bounces. The bounces are lower so there is less energy going into the ground. With less energy the ball isn't going to have to compress as much.

One last thing, the first arc seems a bit steep.

Looks much much better than the last one. Keep up the good work.

Aloha,
the Ape

Get to it when you get to it Rach. I'd say move on to the pendulum next. Work your way up the animation basics first then start on characters and acting. The purpose is for the technical animation to become second nature so when you're animating characters, all the stuff like arcs, overlapping action, squash and stretch all second nature.

Where are you getting these animation exercises from Rach?

Aloha,
the Ape

Get to it when you get to it Rach. I'd say move on to the pendulum next. Work your way up the animation basics first then start on characters and acting.

Where are you getting these animation exercises from Rach?

Aloha,
the Ape

So, should morphing primitives come before the ball bounce? I know that rach3 is focused on movement but the only animation exercise information I have is in the "Animator's Survival Kit" and that is all movement. I pulled the morphing idea from the books I am using with my drawing exercises.