Bouncing Balls - Light and Heavy

Critical Evaluation


This is the Bouncing Balls - Light and Heavy exercise, using Autodesk Maya. For this project, I adjusted both timing and spacing to create the feel of different weights of the balls.

Firstly, the left one should be the heavy ball. Reading the reference material, I realised that timing is an aspect which is very important for the impression of weight. Thus, I changed both timings of the cube which pushes the ball, and of the ball itself, giving more frames for the motion to be completed. However, a problem occured on the rotation, because I did not know how to synchronise the rotation with the fall of the shelf, to create a more realistic motion. Despite this fact, I adjusted the spacing, forming an acceleration as the ball falls (10 frames to fall after it leaves the shelf) using the Graph Editor and changing the tangent types (weighted, broken and free tangent weight). In addition, the ball rises very little of the ground and bounces 2 times, moving a little bit, thus, giving the feel of its weight and its mass.
Secondly, the right ball should be the light one. I created an acceleration for both cube and ball, in order to show that this great force is acted on the ball which has a little inertia and resistance. Furthermore, using the Graph Editor again and changing the tangent types, I created an acceleration as it falls, and also some bounces, so the object decelerates as it rises and accelerate as it falls, travelling a greater distance than the heavier one, thanks to its little weight and mass. It rises higher than the heavy one, because it is lighter.

To sum up, with this exercise, I was more occupied with the Graph Editor and Ghosting to adjust and watch the spacing, respectively. I believe that I earned more experience on working with both timing and spacing, which will be a great help for future projects.