Week 11 Lab 2 - Squash & Stretch

This is how I create a bouncing ball animation with squash & stretch in Maya.

Process

First, I created a new sphere object. Then, I grouped it with itself twice so that one group would handle the translate values and one group would handle the rotate values. I then locked all the unnecessary attributes for each group and locked all the attributes of the sphere.

I then locked all the values of the squash handle except for the rotate attributes and the factor.

I then created a new polygonal plane for the ball to bounce on and textured everything.

I then input different translate values at different frames:

I then opened up the animation graph and then changed the curves so that the bounces look more linear and natural.

At the points where the ball hits the ground, I changed the squash factor of the ball to either -0.5 or 0.5 for squash and stretch respectively. Then, at I made the ball rotate by setting two keyframes, frames 1 and frames 100, with frame 100 have the value of rotate z at -1200.

This is the end result of my bouncing ball animation with squash & stretch:

Questions

1) Why is squash and stretch so useful in animation?

Squash and Stretch is useful in the sense that it gives a realistic feel if used carefully. However, if used too much, it could give out a more cartoony feel. So varied squash & stretch could be used to give the desired feel of the animation.

2) Think of a situation in which extreme squash and stretch could be applied to a character - try to be original.

A person was extremely angry at his enemy because the enemy stole all his clothes, his money and his games. So the person used all his force and punched the enemy right in the face. And the enemy's face went through extreme squash and stretch.

3) Think of an animation example where squash and stretch would NOT be appropriate.

A person punching a metal box. When the metal box is punched, there will be squash in the sense that the metal box will get dented, but then it will not fall back into its original position.

4) If squash and stretch doesn't really happen so obviously in real life, why do you think is it so effective in animation?

This is because animation is exaggerated from real life. Animation has to give off feeling and environment to stimulate what our five senses would know. Squash and stretch is one of the techniques that help us visualise better what is the animation trying to portray.

Techniques

I have learnt how to give squash and stretch to a bouncing ball animation, by using the squash deformer.

I have learnt how to make a ball rotate as the animation goes on.

Reflection

My animation was not that good this time either.

However, I felt that this animation made me more familiar with Maya and that now I feel more confident using Maya.

References

Maya Online Help