Maya Complete 4.5: Animation - Bouncing Ball
Maya Complete 4.5: Animation - Bouncing Ball
The controls may look complicated but as we go through successive tutorials they will
become more familiar.
2
Maya Complete 4.5
Animation - Bouncing Ball
We' re going to make a Keyframe animation of a ball dropping down, bouncing and
coming to a stop. Keyframe animation is a traditional method that employs setting an
objects beginning position at a point in time and setting a Key, then for every motion,
whether it' s Moving, Scaling or Rotating, setting keys at other points along the Time
Line progressively, to the end position in time.
Open the file Bounce001.mb from the Mac server and copy it to your desktop.
The Playback controls located at the end of the Time Line function in the standard way.
Step back one Key. Play/Pause
backwards.
Step back one
Frame. Go to end of
Playback range.
Go to start of
Playback range. Step forward one Frame.
Maya has worked out the in-betweens so that the ball travels in the direction specified
otherwise when the animation is played the ball would stay in its original position until
the end Frame and flick to its last position.
Once the beginning and end Keys have been set there are two ways to add Keys, either
move the ball into its Key positions setting a Key for each one or by adding them in the
Graph Editor. We' ll be positioning the ball manually and edit the Keys in the The Graph
Editor.
Outliner
Graph
When an object that has been animated is selected - its motion values over time are
shown as bezier curves (if you' ve used Adobe Illustrator these will be familiar to you).
As you can see there aren' t any curves at present because the motion is linear
(Straight), all axis and transform (Move, Scale, Rotate, Visibility) are displayed in the
Outliner left of the graph, above is a Menu Bar, below which is a Tool Bar that contains
the most commonly used tools that sit inside the Menu.
As just mentioned all the motion curves are at present linear, axis "X" and "Y" though are
travelling diagonally which is the motion of the ball; Any motion curves that are flat
(lying horizontal) aren' t doing anything.
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Maya Complete 4.5
Animation - Bouncing Ball
Now that the beginning and end Keys have been set we' ll start positioning the ball and
setting Keys along the path we want it to follow.
As you can see the other Keys have all been treated in the same way so continue to
perform the same attributes to the rest of the Keys at the bottom of the curve and then
hit the play button. The motion now has a point of impact and looks like it' s hitting the
surface.
Remember that to move Keys or handles that have been selected you must hold down
MMB (Middle Mouse Button) and drag. I' ll be using the MMB abbreviation when editing
in the Graphic Editor.
If the ball is above or below the surface or it' s too high in successive bounces, it can be
moved by holding down MMB and dragging. Holding down Shift will limit the direction
either up or down, left or right depending which direction you initially choose.
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Maya Complete 4.5
Animation - Bouncing Ball
With some more editing the curve starts to create the motion we' re looking for. By
adjusting the spacing of the arcs we can change the frequency between each bouncing
motion and so fine tune the timing.
To get an even arch at the top of the curve select one or however many you' d wish to
affect, in the Tool Bar click "Flat tangent".
When we deleted the Static Channels we removed Rotation Channels, however as soon
as another motion is created Maya will recall the previously deleted channels so you
can delete the Static Channels as often as you wish. We need to make the ball spin and
this can be done quickly and easily.
Select: persp.
Click to turn Z
Depth on Select: Medium Quality or
higher
When you' ve setup the rendering output file type go to the Menu Bar, click
Render>Batch Render. Maya will save the movie in the images sub-folder in the project
folder Bounce001. If you going to render more movies to compare settings you' ll need
to add put a digit in place of the last zero e.g. Bouncy_0001.