Second attempt at Timing and Spacing
Hi there, after my last post about the bouncing ball, Erik (a friend and a walking animation resource) asked me a couple of questions about my process.
I felt so intrigued by the question that I decided to compile all the notes and thoughts people left me and have a second attempt at practicing/ learning more about timing and spacing.
Here are the notes I took during the second process:
My process at animating a bouncing golf ball (attempt number two):
- Second, I set up my key poses and gradually tweaking the height of how high the ball bounces back after it hits the floor. In other words I am trying to estimate how much deceleration each bounce will have.
- Then, I roughly set my half way poses.
- After that, I create a motion chart to illustrate the breakdowns and inbetweens. I keep on adding half way marks until I am satisfied with the slow ins and outs and acceleration/ deceleration.
- Once I have enough breakdowns and inbetweens I test it to see if the overall energy has enough force and if it’s believable at all.
Then I looked at the video reference again, created a motion chart with breakdowns and inbetweens.
From analyzing the footage I learned that the ball fell down in an evenly spaced out pace. Every time the ball contacted the ground, it bounced back up and slowed in and out gradually.
Note to self: Although I offset the breakdown poses, the animation still feels little bit floaty for some reason.
Conclusion:
- Spacing is damn hard!
- Texture in your spacing will result a more fluid motion of the bouncing ball.
5 Comments
Leave a Comment
Slideshow
Hi, my name is Avner, and I am addicted to animation!
Welcome to my work in progress animation workbook. Feel free to share ideas, thoughts, feedback or anything else that can help me evolve and further my learning. 
if u watch ur animation closely…U will find. it look like some one is puuling the ball frm TOP…if I m nt worng…
Y dont u try a simple ball animation …I mean one bounce and make it Cycle…thats will kool exercise for to lean this…and also make some close pose at the TOP…more hang…
wid every bounce the ball is realising its energy and…..and the bounce will also low..
I hope this will help nt a Big Animator…learning frm Everyone
Cheers..
-MB
It’s floaty because you need to exaggerate more. The more you push that spacing, the more life it will take on and the less floaty (evenly spaced) it will feel.
Variety is the spice of life!
Hey man,
I think the reason you still think it feels to floaty is that you have too many frames in there, and it’s starting to feel kind of linear.
Right off the bat by looking at your spacing chart (awesome idea by the way! super helpful) it’s apparent that the spacing never really grows big enough. According to your tick marks it looks like the gaps between each frame from 8 to 15 are all just BARELY different. You could dump a bunch of those frames and it would probably read better and feel like it was falling faster. For example, if you kept everything up until frame 9 (on your tick marks), you could put frame 10 half way between your marks for 10 and 11, and then put frame 11 down a bit past the mark for 12, and then the new frame 12 could be the contact. If that makes any sense…
(this example might look like its speeding up too fast if you keep the first part the way it is, so use your judgment!)
But it is already looking better than the last one, so keep up the great work!!!
Hey man,
I think the reason you still think it feels too floaty is that you have too many frames in there, and it’s starting to feel kind of linear.
Right off the bat by looking at your spacing chart (awesome idea by the way! super helpful) it’s apparent that the spacing never really grows big enough. According to your tick marks it looks like the gaps between each frame from 8 to 15 are all just BARELY different. You could dump a bunch of those frames and it would probably read better and feel like it was falling faster. For example, if you kept everything up until frame 9 (on your tick marks), you could put frame 10 half way between your marks for 10 and 11, and then put frame 11 down a bit past the mark for 12, and then the new frame 12 could be the contact. If that makes any sense…
(this example might look like its speeding up too fast if you keep the first part the way it is, so use your judgment!)
But it is already looking better than the last one, so keep up the great work!!!
Hey Avner,
Looks really well thought out… I’d to agree with mahesh, though… too much hang-time. Feels like it’s staying up in the air for too long… needs more gravity… also doesn’t seem to loose energy consistently… I get the feeling there’s too many keys being used…
A good rule of thumb I like to go by is: does it feelt right? I can normally judge this by the first time I watch something… if your not sure after the first watch, there’s generally something wrong… Good first pass, though.
Sometimes keeping it simple is part of the key.