In this Blender video tutorial, I will use the ball and rig from the our previous animation tutorial. In this tutorial I will go over creating believable bounces with three different types of balls.
If you are looking to become an animator of do a quick exercise, making balls bounce is all part of the industry. 
Understanding and creating believable weights of CG balls that will mimic a golf ball, basket ball and a ball filled with a bit of water.
LOL David Ward your tuts are so enterraining
I like yours the best because you entertain us as you teach, We should have a DW Fan club :b
Tik, tik tik, tik, tik tik. (Sound effects me typing) Really works! =P
Thanks for the VT! I appreciate every one of them!
Great tut, david =D ( again ).
. I think that many blender users would be very greatfull. And let me repeat
keep on the good work.
I have a request. Is it posible that you make a tutorial on modeling and rigging a low poly character (for games).
Lets say with the poly count of 1000. Your alien series was magnificent, but the animation process
seems to be diferent with low poly meshes, couse i have constant problems when i rig and than animate them.
So please make an tutorial on that topic
myself again. Great tutorial
have you seen the intro to the game engine series? check this out:
http://www.blendercookie.com/2010/05/13/game-enginecharacter-part-1/
Yes i did =D. Eddie is great
but a more in deph tutorial would be great 
. It was only a proposal not
a demand by the way so that you don’t get me wrong man
its very helty thancs
“Being a golf ball its not gonna deform a hole lot.”
http://www.wimp.com/golfball/
Slow motion Golf ball hitting steel.
I just i’d just leave that here.
thanks for that link, supreme!! i still refuse to believe a golf ball does that, though i’ve seen it with my own eyes on the interne! XD
off topic (sort of) – scrolling through the videos on that site is one called “Man has marble addiction”. brilliant documentary piece.
cheers,
[marbles] agreed
that. is. insane.
Nice tutorial.
@supreme: Nice find
I did not think it would deform that much
Jonathan, make a tutorial on modeling a character,
then David, continue the series by rigging it!
That would probably be confusing, because Jonathan made the model, and David rig..
awesome… ur truly a master, my animation skills are now way better thanks to you!
Thanks for the tutorial! I found it very helpful. In case anyone is interested, there is a great article by Brendan Body about the ‘bouncing ball’ and it’s application to character animation: http://www.brendanbody.co.uk/bb_lecture/index.html
It’s moderately long, but well worth the read if you are interested in animation.
Hey David, I would LOVE YOU TO DEATH if you could PLEASE PLEASE make this model:
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_RU8vXW4WLqU/TJCByQYZfvI/AAAAAAAAU0I/iqtPzv0RqTo/Emile-A239%20-%2001.jpg
Holy Crap, i am just… So ametuer at Blender, though i’ve used it for a year.
I’m famailar, can animate, but your so good, and i’m so bad.
PLEASE make it! then show it off on the website or make a tut making it,
here is another pic:
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/nn216/BL00D-NIGHT/Emile_right2.png
If your asking what for, this is a spartan from halo reach, if u made this, and gave me it, AND RIGGED IT(PLEASE IM HORRIBLE AT THAT.) I can animate my way and use it for my youtube. IF YOU DID THIS I WOULD ABSOLUTELY SHIT MY PANTS.
(And to be honest, i need it for school) But please kernon, or dave, PLEASE YOU GUYS.
-Spencer I.
MSN: spencer_i@hotmail.com <—- if u got msn, PLEASE talk to me so we can discuss this, for gods sake.
slightly off topic…..
Im no modeler or rigger myself but i can tell you if you want if for a personal project, take your time and relax. M&R-ing can seem tedious at times but once you finally see YOUR finished product, I’m sure you wont be disappointed. Most of all have fun, even when Blender crashes. Its all about the experience points. The only way you’ll ever reach where grand master david is is by leveling up. Keep at it and good luck.
^^^^^
What the F??
Hi, David!
Thank you for this interesting tutorial!
Do we have a chance that you’ll made a tutorial on this theme:
http://aligorith.blogspot.com/2010/09/rigging-faq-constraints-and-rotations.html
?
Generally – I got Aligorith’s ideas but it will be really clear for all if somebody will demonstrate this (especially the part about solution with Drivers).
for some strange reason, I can’t post comments in the actual Ball Rig tutorial page O_o I’ll just post it here:
Thanks for the great tutorial, David!
also wanted to show the results I got from this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRHkinyV3G0
far from perfect, but with a bit of work I think I could get there
I also took the rig a bit further, and it works kinda well, though I would have to animate something else to see if the change is really worthwhile:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_5p79Md8UWFA/TNxY5q8Pj1I/AAAAAAAAAJU/aH8eC7GCT9M/s1600/BallRig_Snapshot.jpg
anyway, big thanks for all these great tutorials, David
they’re kinda entertaining too, which makes them even better
Ehh..
I hate to be the one pointing these things out, but since you brought up physics and everything..
The golfball in the beginning can’t bounce higher than where it initially fell from.
Conservation of energy, man! =P
So unless it’s flubber or something, that’s technically not right.
Just sayin’.
Another thing, the amount of deformation doesn’t depend on how fast something is going to be moving, but rather on acceleration and structural stiffness basically.
And on a related note, the balls can’t “anticipate” the impact with the ground either, but only start deforming after contact has been made. =P
Again, I hate to be the one to point these things out, I like your tutorials and
I’ve learned a bunch about how to give things that character and liveliness,
but you’re a little bit off on the physics.
Awesome, awesome… did I say awesome?
Hey thank you very much, I am just starting out in blender making the move from maya and was wondering if you could talk about the maya preset in blender and how to import characters into your scene without it going back to the blender default because I keep running into that problem. Everytime I get a character into the scene it autamatically goes back to the blender default, but I would like to work in the maya preset. Was wondering if you could talk about it and go over the basics with the maya preset and such.
Nice tutorial. Very descriptive.