Skip to main content
G
Guym20
Inspiring
December 11, 2023
Question

Realisticly animating a rolling ball

  • December 11, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 1631 views

Hi

I'm trying to animate a ball that rolls between many different scenes through different routes - climbing a mountain, then rolling down and jumping at the end, bouncing on objects, etc..

 

This video has a few scenes with such a ball, for example.

Also attaching part of the storyboard:

 

What would be the best way to do it realisticly?

Using Newton's plugin isn't going to work here due to the length of these scenes and the fact the ball should move from scene to scene, and if there is some way to do it with Newton - I don't how to achieve such a behaviour there.

 

Thank you!

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    1 reply

    ShiveringCactus
    Community Expert
    ShiveringCactusCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    December 11, 2023

    There's various expressions out there to help with rolling a ball,

    Regular poster and expert Rick Gerard shared this solution: https://hottek.net/2007/11/square-wheels.html

     

    I shared a solution myself:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XktgQ8idUFE&

     

    And Dan Ebbert's Bounce and Overshoot script might well be the way forward for getting some automatic bouncing:

    https://www.motionscript.com/articles/bounce-and-overshoot.html

     

    If you're wanting the entire thing to be keyframe-less, I think you are looking for a physics simulator like Newton.  However, if you're prepared to keyframe some of the animation, you can use expressions like valueAtTime or precomps to get the action to repeat.

     

      G
      Guym20Author
      Inspiring
      December 12, 2023

      Thank you, though the issue is not the rotation at all.

      We're talking about a smooth circle, and the problem is the physics it requires.

       

      Any ideas for that?

      ShiveringCactus
      Community Expert
      ShiveringCactusCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      December 14, 2023

      I think you might be stuck with Newton.  The only thing I can think of that might work would be Particle Playground, using masks as walls but I think you'll spend a lot of time tweaking the settings and still not be satisfied with the result.  

      Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
      Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices