Meet The Bouncing Ball!

Bouncin' Ball 1.0.0

It's week 1 of Animation Core here at Escape Studios for our undergraduate VFX students, and also the first week for our short course animation students. Both groups are tackling the infamous bouncing ball exercise.

Why start with a bouncing ball? Well, pretty much every animation course on the planet starts with a ball. It's where students first encounter the concepts of timing and spacing, and also how to use important tools such as the Graph Editor.


This free bouncing ball rig (see above) is the rig we suggest that students download when they first start learning animation. It's available for free download at highend3D.com.

The Bouncing Ball exercise isn't just about learning timing and spacing. It's also where students of animation begin to learn the importance of giving a performance.  Even a bouncing ball can be made to look fun and interesting or - heaven forbid - dull and boring. And, in the end, animators are entertainers - making our work fun to watch is what we do.

How does it work?
This rig is a simple bouncing ball with top and bottom controls for the squash-and-stretch, and also independent controls over its orientation, as well as the rotation and the position of the ball itself.

Who created it?
Saul Garcia

What is the license type?
Freeware

How does it work?
To see some videos on how to use and animate the Bouncing Ball, follow this link.

The Escape Studios Animation Blog offers a personal view on the art of animation and visual effects. To apply for our new BA/MArt starting in September 2017, follow this link.  We train all our animators with practical real-world skills, to give them the best possible chance of a career in industry. To see our success stories, follow this link.