Bouncing ball in maya help please
 

Hi all,
I'm very new to maya and have been given a bouncing ball rig with which to create an animation of a ball bouncing off a wall & polygons.

So far mine is pretty poor :(

Anyone have any advice/tutorials?

Thanks,
JD

Take a look here: http://www.idleworm.com/how/anm/01b/bball.shtml

Thanks!

Is there any that can help with smoothing out a maya bouncing ball (with a pre-made rig)?

Look up things on the graph editor. It's your bread and butter for animation :)

That and the dope sheet ;D

there are so many ball bouncing tutorials on net,google for them......

Thanks. Yeah I've googled plenty but I'm stuck on getting a smooth bell rotation from one from to the next?

It's hard for us to help out if we can't see what you're working on. If you show us, it would allow us to help you more.

How can I upload the animation to show you?

goto playblast(right click on keys),then attach that file here in simply maya......

Ok, here it is. Don't laugh too much :p

Could you by any chance beg, borrow or ermm, buy the book Learning Maya 6 Foundation? That has an excellent bouncing ball tutorial...

Looking at your animation you need to work on the timing first. Your ball starts to do some weird stuff when it gets to the wall. Next work on the bounce and set key frames where the ball strikes the ground, reaches it's zenith on each bounce and where it strikes the wall. Next up you could look at squash and stretch to give the ball some life when it hits the floor or wall (squash) and when it rises from the bounce (stretch).

Remember your ball will bounce lower with each bounce due to gravity and friction. Take a tennis ball or something like that and chuck at the wall outside and see what it does.

-Jacques