Squash and Stretch Ball - Week 3

With this weeks Maya exercise we had to animate a squash and stretch ball around a room. After hearing the principles of animation lecture, squash and stretch is a key feature within animation to over emphasise the character and its action. This is why I wanted to learn how to emphasise the squash when the ball hits the surface and the stretch when it leaves the floor. After experimenting last week with a ball bouncing on the ground on maya, I was a bit familiar with the keys on how to record the animation.

First I key framed how a ball would be thrown across the room and then have it bounce against the remaining of the other walls, what I found difficult however was the timing between how a ball would hit one wall to another. For example when it would bounce against one wall it, it would then bounce in the direction towards another wall and then on the floor. At first I mucked up the timing as the transition between the two bounces was too slow and therefore it looked unrealistic, but I realised how to fix this so it now looks much better. I also likes how it looks with the squash and stretch.