Ever heard of the saying, “Everything is a bouncing ball”? This is a well-known concept in animation, and it essentially means that just about everything relies on the same animation principles of timing, spacing, arc, etc. that are applied to something as simple as a bouncing ball. There’s a reason why just about every animation curriculum starts out with a bouncing ball exercise – through it, you can learn the foundations of all animation. Animating characters or creatures can be quite a daunting task, so it could help to take a step back and approach each part of a complex rig as just a bouncing ball. (Instructor Tony Mecca did just this in his VFX demo here)
It can be difficult to visualize how a character with multiple limbs and joints could amount to a collection of bouncing balls, so our instructor Yuri Lementy did an analysis of a few shots to help visualize the bouncing balls hidden in some of our favorite animations. You can use the concept of bouncing balls to plan out the overall hip movement of a shot, or even to dictate the bouncy motion of a character’s hands and feet. The possibilities are endless! Check out the magic in play here:
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