Bounce Animation

Storyboards and written description of animation:

Animation Principles and Images:

We incorporated both slow in, slow out and anticipation into the movement of the larger ball.

Slow in, slow out is represented by how each time the larger ball moves closer to the smaller ball, the larger ball bounces three times. The first bounce is smaller or "slower", the second bounce is larger or "faster" and finally the third and final bounce is once again smaller or "slower". This sort of movement is in line with slow in, slow out and can be seen in the picture provided above.

Anticipation is shown in the way that the larger ball gets closer and closer to the smaller ball in increments with the smaller ball turning around to look at the larger ball in between each increment to build tension. The viewer knows that the larger ball will eventually reach the smaller ball but the way in which the process gets drawn out provides anticipation.

We incorporated squash and stretch in the movement of the balls each time they bounce or come in contact with one another. The image above shows the way in which the larger ball squashes when it hits the floor. We made sure that harder bounces were correlated with deeper squashes and consequently softer bounces were correlated with shallower squashes.

The image above shows the way in which the larger ball stretches at the apex of its path. We made sure that in harder bounces the ball stretches more and in softer bounces the ball stretches less, reinforcing to the viewer that the bounce was indeed either a hard or soft bounce.

We incorporated exaggeration in the way that the smaller ball is shot up very high after it is hit by the larger ball. This moment occurs at the climax of the scene after much anticipation and so by exaggerating the effect of the larger ball hitting the smaller ball, we give a nice conclusion to the scene.

Video:

Unshaded version - can better see concepts such as slow in/slow out and squash and stretch

Shaded version - includes appeal