Bouncing Football

Getting our 3Ds Max suitable for animation

Right click the + symbol on the top left of your view point, there you will get a list, go down to configure viewpoint and click, there choose the viewpoint set up you want, once ready right click the box/viewpoint you want to be your curve editor and go down to tracks, there select curve editor, click apply and then click okay, nothing much will happen as you then have to click maximizing view point toggle, located at the bottom right of 3Ds Max.

(Example of viewpoint configuration) 

Football Bouncing Process

Now that we are ready to start our animation we set up how many key frames we wanted to work to, which is 40, once set we then selected our helper and hit auto key, there we went to the first frame 0 and set a key, we then when to the middle frame 20 and set a key frame and finally the last key frame 40 and set key frame. We moved the ball on the first frame 0 on the Z axis to 20 and again on the last frame 40, keeping the middle key frame (20) on Z axis 0, keeping the ball in the centre on the floor, we ended up with having a very basic ball bounce.

(Example of using the helper to align the ball)

We needed the ball to bounce across the screen and not on the spot so I moved my ball on the first frame across as if it was coming in, I kept my ball on Z axis 20 and moved it on the X axis to 40 and did the same on the last frame but -40. This resulted again in a basic ball bounce but this time not on just on one spot. we then changed the middle frame where the ball hits the floor in the curve editor to a fast tangent, leaving my first frame 0 and final frame 40 on slow tangents.

(Example of ball lifted up and ready for moving)

We needed to the ball to stretch to show pressure from the force of the ball coming down, so we went to frame 20 the middle of my animation where to ball is touching the floor, and used the stretch tool to squash the ball down, we also went to frame 19 and 23 to stretch the ball vertical a little bit to show the ball losing its force before the bounce making the animation look realistic.

  (Example of Ball be stretched and it's curve line)

We then moved onto changing the X coordinates within the curve editor on the helper to make the balls animation more realistic, we set tangent to linear, to ensure a smooth animation.
We needed to make the ball rotate in the animation as our ball is still within the animation, I rotated the first frame using the rotation tool to -90 on the first from 0, then for the middle 20 I set it to -180 and finally on the last frame to -270

(Example of ball in rotation in curve editor)

(Example of completed animation with all lines within curve editor)

Once we were happy with our animation, we then moved onto the rendering process to allow me to make this video (as seen below)

This is my animation of my football bouncing after adding all the keys frame and modification to make my football bounce.

Outcome: Using the curve editor to control my animations behavior is a massive learning curve, and a great way of manipulating my animation to get the correct movement and emotion. Using one of the 12 rules (Squash and Stretch) within a bounce animation, I can now understand how to create and approach the correct force and feel within a bounce in animation, and how to incorporate it.