At its basics, animating a bouncing ball in Blender involves creating keyframes for the ball’s position and adjusting its movement over time. Here we’ll go step-by-step on animating a bouncing ball in Blender while also giving it that squash and stretch look:

Create the Ball and Assign the Material

To kick things off, let’s begin by adding the ball to the scene and then applying some paint to make it resemble a beach ball. Take a look:

Skinning the Bone to the Ball

Now, let’s incorporate an Armature into the scene and then attach the beach ball to the skeleton, allowing it to deform while retaining its volume. Let’s get to it:

Make it Bounce

No need to worry, as it’s time to work our magic. With the volume constraint in play, we simply need to establish a few keyframes to achieve the desired effect. Here’s how effortless it truly is:

Adding Arc to Keyframes

Something appears rigid about the previous keyframing, and now we need to modify the curves to resemble a more natural arc. Changing the interpolation type makes this adjustment a breeze:

Remember, this is a basic guide to get you started. Blender offers many tools for more advanced animation techniques, such as shape keys, secondary motion, and more complex physics simulations. As we become more familiar with Blender, we will explore these techniques to enhance your animations and showcasing these dynamic effects directly inside of Sceneri.

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