Bouncing Ball Animation Exercise

For this exercie I had to create an animation of a bouncing ball; creating this animation involved several processes.

Step 1 - Drawing the ball 

To create this animation we had to understand what animation is and how it works. All video is composed of frames; video is essentially a series of pictures accompanied by sound that creates the illusion of motion. The most conventional form of animation (such as in disney cartoons and moveis) is composed of lots of drames that have been drawn and then placed into chronological order, we were going to attempt to create this kind of animation.

For our first animation we made a simple bouncing ball. The main principle to remember was animating the ball through an arc because most motions in real life are arcs despite how subtle they may be. In our animation there was going to be three arcs, the ball would drop from high up and create an arc and each subsciquent arc would be smaller until the ball lost all interia.

We started by gathering 32 pages designed for flip-book animation and drawing one frame of the animation per page; the ball would be in a different spot between pages and when it made contact with the ground it would compress. The more consistent the distance the ball moved between each frame the more fluid the end animation would look. We also had to preserve the volume of the ball (size) to avoid the motion looking too unnatural.


Step 2 - Capture the animation

Sanning the pages would be the optimal method of capturing video however, due to time constraints we used a video camera along with the program iStopMotion. iStopMotion captures a single frame from the camera and builds up a collection of images so they can be played in a similar fashion to a conventional video.

We loaded up a new project with PAL settings and 12 FPS. FPS stands for 'Frames Per Second' which is the number of frames (or images) per second in a video. The higher the frame rate the seamless the motion is to the viewer watching the video. Movies tend to use 24 frames per second for a cinematic feel and TV (in the UK) uses 25 frames per second. Video games vary depending on the hardware and software used, but the ideal range is 30fps - 60fps as it is more visually appealing. Frame rates for stop-motion animation is typically 12fps, this gives the animation a distinct visual 'feel' and it makes it easier for animators as they can draw less frames per second.

To capture the animation we stuck the flipbook in place and took a picture of each frame being careful not to move the flipbook or accidentally include anything else in the frame. To capture a frame we could press space or press a button on-screen to take a photo. Between each camera press we would change the flipbook page (alternatively if we were animating something we would make a slight change and take another photo, this creates the illusion of motion when played back as a video). Once we had taken a capture for every page of the book we could preview it to see if it was smooth, then out-put a video file to edit,


Step 3 - Editing the video

This step was simple,  all I had to do was import the video that had been rendered from iStopMotion and import it into Final Cut; the frames were already compiled into sequence so I did not have to do this manually. All I had to do was add a title using the tools in Final Cut and a fade. To make the video some style I added a soundtrack from an MP3 I thought I had fitted. I then rendered it and placed it on Vimeo.

Here is the final video:





Regardless that this is my first flipbook stop animation and I am disappointed with it. The most obvious and distracting flaw is that the lighting changes dramatically between frames; this change in lighting conditions could have been solved with a more controlled environment without other people or objects creating shadows. The motion is not entirely consistent, it could have been smoother but I think this comes with practice. If I was to do this again I would like to add more detail and colour and possibly shading; there could be other objects like flowers or trees swaying, the ground and location could have a context and colours could liven up the scene. However, each detail and shape multiplies the time spent on the animation as each detail has to be re-drawn in every frame.