"Stop Motion Animation of Falling"

For this Assignment, I wanted to compare a few methods on animating the falling and bouncing of balls. The methods used were Odds, a la Chai, and Kinematics.

The Three Test can be downloaded individually in the following links (dropbox.com):
Odds.mov | Chai.mov | Kinematics.mov

The making of the video was pretty fun and required a bit of improvisation. The camera used to capture the frames was mounted onto a tripod. The tripod was folded closed and mounted to a shelf, pointing down at the stage. A light was mounted to the tripod as well, and a remote switch was used to ensure minimal shift in the camera's placement as it was being used. The stage was made of foam and laminate board to give a solid background for the ball to read against and to give the illusion of a floor space on which the ball would land. The ball used was a ping-pong ball which was taped to a coin to keep it in place for shots.

The Animation Stage

Camera, Light, and Remote Trigger

Laminate Wood, Measuring Tape, Ping Pong Ball, and coin covered in tape

The results of the kinematic equation was created using spreadsheet software.

Video analysis of path of action

Tracker Video Analysis of Falling

Video Reference

"Fourth Down at Half-time"

Mini-Portfolio

I am a A/I Major who just passed portfolio review and hope to, someday, work in videogames as an animator. I was originally a Mechanical Engineer Major and studied kinematics and statics. I am currently enrolled in Animation (ANI 114), Beginning Modeling (ANI 51a), Theater Arts Writing (TA 100W), and of course Physics of Animation (PHYS 123). I have a great appreciation for scientific endeavors, particularly that of space exploration. Personal heroes include Carl Sagan and Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

The First Post!

Stand back! I'm going to try science!