Anime Studio's inability to animate a bouncing ball properly

J. Baker · Post by **J. Baker** » Sat Jun 12, 2010 8:13 pm

I don't seem to have any issues with easing. I think these complaints can get out of hand sometimes. Mike and Smith Micro worked really hard on AS7. Let's be more thankful that we're not animating frame by frame. If we were, there would be a lot less animators here on this forum.

Bouncing Ball AS7

Bouncing Ball - Quicktime

heiseman · Post by **heiseman** » Sat Jun 12, 2010 8:48 pm

Anime Studio is great, don't get me wrong. The new version looks very impressive with the addition of physics. But the complaint I have is a very reasonable one. I just want the software to be as good as it can possibly be. There have been numerous threads in the feature request forum regarding this issue but they all seem to go unnoticed by Smith Micro/Lost Marble. Anyway, if anyone would like to support this feature request, go to:

viewtopic.php?t=11462

...and post a reply. It is in the Feature Request forum.

Hopefully Smith Micro/Lost Marble notice the post and patch the software soon.

J. Baker · Post by **J. Baker** » Sat Jun 12, 2010 8:59 pm

I do catch Mike on here at night browsing the forums from time to time. I'm sure he'll see it. But easing in and out work just fine for me. Just look at the files I posted on the top of the page. It wasn't hard and took me only a minute to do. But I hope you get your feature request.

heiseman · Post by **heiseman** » Sat Jun 12, 2010 10:05 pm

Well, they have just released a trial for anime studio pro 7. I'll give that a go and see if it can do the job any better. I'll also need ASP7 to open your file to have a look. Your movie looked better than the bouncing ball i did in ASP5 but it did still look like it slowed down a bit before it hit the ground which is unnatural.

J. Baker · Post by **J. Baker** » Sat Jun 12, 2010 10:25 pm

heiseman wrote:Well, they have just released a trial for anime studio pro 7. I'll give that a go and see if it can do the job any better. I'll also need ASP7 to open your file to have a look. Your movie looked better than the bouncing ball i did in ASP5 but it did still look like it slowed down a bit before it hit the ground which is unnatural.

Sorry, that would be my fault. I had it to ease in on the last frame. Will fix and re-upload.

EDIT: It's fixed and uploaded. I left the ease-in on the last frame but that for the ball to squish back down now.

heiseman · Post by **heiseman** » Sun Jun 13, 2010 12:37 am

If you look at frame 20 and 21 of your animation you will notice that the ball is slowing down before it hits the ground. It may help if you switch on onion skinning. This is completely wrong. It should only accelerate prior to hitting the ground. There should be no slowing down of any kind before the ball hits the ground. This is exactly my problem and what I am hoping there will be a fix for. Have a look again at:
http://www.lukeheise.com/temp/bounceball.mp4

Notice the correct acceleration before the impact of the ball hitting the ground. That is how I'd like for it to be in Anime Studio Pro. The slowing down before impact is a real pain in the ass.

J. Baker · Post by **J. Baker** » Sun Jun 13, 2010 12:39 am

heiseman wrote:If you look at frame 20 and 21 of your animation you will notice that the ball is slowing down before it hits the ground. It may help if you switch on onion skinning. This is completely wrong. It should only accelerate prior to hitting the ground. There should be no slowing down of any kind before the ball hits the ground. This is exactly my problem and what I am hoping there will be a fix for. Have a look again at:
http://www.lukeheise.com/temp/bounceball.mp4

Notice the correct acceleration before the impact of the ball hitting the ground. That is how I'd like for it to be in Anime Studio Pro. The slowing down before impact is a real pain in the ass.

Did you see my updated files? I'll look into it.

J. Baker · Post by **J. Baker** » Sun Jun 13, 2010 1:00 am

I see the slow down now. It's like it has something to do with averaging of the in-betweens to the last frame. Hmm...

J. Baker · Post by **J. Baker** » Sun Jun 13, 2010 1:11 am

It's actually an easy fix.

If previous in-betweens equals 7 and last in-between eqauls 3.
Then last 3 in-betweens equals 8.

heiseman · Post by **heiseman** » Sun Jun 13, 2010 2:32 am

Sorry, what do you mean with those numbers? Did you fix the problem?

Rhoel · Post by **Rhoel** » Sun Jun 13, 2010 3:07 am

This ease-i/out issue a very old problem and well documented as a bug/fix. As fas as I can remember, it dates back to at least 5.3 as a fix. I gave up arguing this one a long time ago.

The arguments as to why it should be placed high on the fix list have been well debated, but the fundamental argument is human movements are based on the ease-in/out model, not the linear or smooth ease-in ease-outs.

Animators understand the importance of prioritizing this, the programmers obviously not so.

heiseman · Post by **heiseman** » Sun Jun 13, 2010 6:36 am

Rhoel wrote:Animators understand the importance of prioritizing this, the programmers obviously not so.

Well said.

J. Baker · Post by **J. Baker** » Sun Jun 13, 2010 9:04 am

heiseman wrote:Sorry, what do you mean with those numbers? Did you fix the problem?

No, while I do have programming knowledge. I'm not a programmer for this software. That was just my idea on how to solve it. And there may be a little more to it then that. But it's a start.

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Sun Jun 13, 2010 10:09 am

Wow! And here I thought that I was the laziest animator in the entire world.

I agree motion graph editing would be cool as heck, but... uh... the bouncing ball??? Really? You guys can't figure that out?

http://www.lowrestv.com/images/files/bounce.mov
http://www.lowrestv.com/images/files/bounce.anme

If you had your magical graph editor there would only be 3 keys for the bounce. I, the laziest animator in the world, had to add just two extra keys. Just 2. So 5 keys instead of 3. It took a few minutes if that. It would have taken longer to edit motion graph bezier handles I am sure.

-------------

You are talking about what is probably a major overhaul to the application. It's only been two versions since SM acquired AS. Huge investments in man power, time etc. they need features to shock and awe, Physics, 3D etc etx. Yes, I AGREE the motion editor would be nice if it had bezier handles, it could be better.

But there is ALWAYS more than one way to skin a cat.

AS's strength has always been it's nonconformity. It doesn't always do what all the other applications can do. Mike thinks outside the box. We all had to learn a new and unusual way to draw in AS. Other things are the same. You find a way to do it and it works.

-vern

sbtamu · Post by **sbtamu** » Sun Jun 13, 2010 11:55 am

I did this bouncing ball with 4 key frames set on smooth and 4th was set on cycle back to 1.

I could of spent another 30 seconds on it to distort the ball on impact but meh, not important to show you can get a ball to bounce pretty naturally in AS.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ_hWLsCkPI