Hi, and welcome to this assignment where we are going  to animate a bouncing ball. We've talked a lot about the bouncing ball  to illustrate some of the principles of animation. And now we're going to animate our own with claymation. So I have a piece of clay here, which is important  because it's actually plasticine,  which means it's not water-based. So if you use something like Play-Doh, just be aware  that it could dry out an actual size of,  of your Play-Doh could shrink  as the water evaporates from the Play-Doh material. So plasticine is fairly cheap, easy to come  by at your hobby store or online.

So I encourage you to get some because it never hardens  and so you can keep using it  and reusing it just might get a little dirty  or you might combine colors or something. So, um, it's really nice to have for stop motion. We have the same setup that we've had before with the app  and we have this piece that's going  to help us keep the ball in the air. And we're gonna remove this in after effects after the fact. Now there's a couple other ideas to keep in mind  and common problems I see beginners have  when they're doing a bouncing ball. So let's imagine this piece is a,  a cannon that's gonna shoot the ball out.

If it's moving at a constant rate, it shoots the ball out. The ball should actually land right at the exact same point  where the cannon is moving  because they're moving at a constant rate. Now one of the common problems I see is  that beginning animators actually will have an inconsistent  rate of forward motion with a bouncing ball. So it'll slow down in midair drastically,  which doesn't make sense physically. So look out for that. The other thing is that we want to, uh, slow in  and slow out on the peaks of the, of the bouncing ball,  as we've seen in previous examples, example,  and that each successive bounce of the ball is going  to be less than the one before it.

So the bounce is gonna get, uh,  shorter and shorter and shorter. So we're gonna animate two bounces together  and I'd like for you to finish your own version of this. Now, one of the big things we need to do with the app, um,  I believe it, it might be a pro feature, so you might have  to put down a couple dollars to have access to this feature,  but I also just wanted to discuss how the, um,  the app works and some photography ideas to keep in mind. So let me hit record on the iPhone and we'll get started. So now that we're in the app, I'm gonna click on my project  and I'm gonna go into the settings of the camera. So now that we're in the settings, I'm gonna go to the kind  of bottom right button here  to pull up the exposure settings here.

And it's automatically, uh, by default on auto. What the problem you get with  that is you'll have a flicker when we try  to remove this piece of clay from the background  because each time the camera takes a picture,  it's going to set the exposure, it's gonna set the,  um, white balance. And so you can have a difference in each frame  because you're letting the camera determine it  every time it's taking a picture. We wanna set it one time and have it consistent  for every photograph. It'll make it easier to remove this so there's no flickering  of color or exposure on the background  that we're gonna replace this with. All right, so we need to go to the manual settings here  for m go over to white balance, make sure one  of these is on May, you know, looks good for the setting  that you're in and we can just have the  exposure be set.

So it's already on kind of settings  that work for what it is. And we're on the right camera. So I'm gonna hit done. So now we have, we're gonna have consistent photographs. So there's gonna be no flickering there,  there's gonna be no white balance changes  from frame to frame. So let's get started with our first image.

We want to get a clean plate, so we want to move out  of the way and have no clay on the screen  because we can use this later, um, as a clean plate  to help remove this piece of clay. So I'm just gonna take a few images there  and also we wanna make sure we don't move this around. So I'm gonna use this pad here. It's maybe 15, 20 bucks to help measure  and be, have a consistent distance  as we move through the frame. You might want to also lay down reference points every time  that you're moving the clay. So in between shots you could put down a piece of clay  to mark where it was so that you can kind  of help measure the distance if you don't have a  mat like this for yourself.

So I'm gonna choose a place to begin  and the whole idea is we wanna set kind of the, the highest  mark of where we want the ball to start from. So I'm gonna make sure it's just the ball is barely on  frame, so our eye has a moment to register. It's, it's coming into frame. So you want just a, a sliver of the ball frame here  and keep a mental note of where, how high it is  because we never want to get back to that height. So that's gonna be as high as the ball ever gets. So I'm gonna move outta the way and take a picture  and be careful not to move the camera when I'm doing it.

So I'm gonna slide back in,  move the ball one square forward here on my mat,  and then I can just push the clay down  to help ease out the bounce  and then slide out of the way and keep going. Go one square forward  and move the ball further down than I did the last time. So it's really starting, it's come down,  I Move the ball one  square forward again. And we can also rotate the ball as we're taking photos  so it's not entirely still in the same kind  of orientation to camera. Okay, here we go. So if we really squash this down  and the next frame is going to be my stretch frame  going into the squash and stretch portion of the bounce.

So I'm Gonna hit picture here, being careful again not  to, and I'm just holding my finger here so I keep track of  where everything was  and I can kind of make a little bit  of a stretch pose with the clay. Set it here for the contact position  because this is coming in from the highest height. This will be the most stretch that we're gonna have  of any of the bounces. Move outta the way, take a picture,  we'll have the squash position  watching the, the onion skin to make sure I'm kind  of centering the squash on where the contact was. And now we can start the bounce out. So we want another stretch pose here as it  accelerates out of the bounce.

Now as we get into the top of the next bounce, we want it  to be lower than the previous one, so we need to keep  that in mind as we begin the bounce upward. Gonna roll this back into a ball shape  for the the next frame. Push this down just a little bit. Keep an eye on the forward motion. We don't want it to slow down  or speed up, we want it  to be fairly consistent moving forward. So I'm gonna have maybe three frames of it easing in.

Let's move it one frame, one little block forward here  and then I'm gonna push  and squeeze the white clay up so it can start easing in. Keeping in mind we don't wanna go higher than  how the ball entered, that's as high as we ever want to go. I also wanna just check the lines on my mat  to make sure I'm not moving the map between frames  very gently taking off the picture,  move the white clay one square forward,  then squeeze the white clay so it's going up,  rotate the ball a little bit  and then next spring will be the peak of the that bounce. Just wanna move one square forward again  and just squeeze the white clay up just a little bit  and rotate the ball. So this is the height of our jump,  so we wanna remember this, this height too  'cause we don't want to go higher than  this the next time as well. I'm, I'm looking at, you know, the features of  the app itself to kind of use it  as a measurements on screen as well.

So I know that's kind of in line  with the stopwatch icon here, so I don't need  to go higher than that on the next bounce. So now we can start coming down  and this is basically the process to repeat  until the ball bounces off a frame. Now I want you to, you, you have all the information now  to finish this out for yourself  and I wanna see what you make and have some fun with it. You know, get comfortable with, uh, just a normal bounce  before you do anything too crazy  because you don't wanna get sidetracked by trying to plus it  and do fancy things before you have the basics down. So do a basic one first  and then maybe have some fun with it. Um, and I'm gonna finish this out and speed this up  and then I will see you in a second inside of  after Effects where we can remove the white clay  from our animation.

So I'll see you in one second. So now that we finish the last frame, I'm going  to take a few pictures of the background again so  that the animation ends not so abruptly  as soon as the ball is exiting frame. So now we've finished the animation, let's take a look at it  and export it so that we can use it in  after effects to remove the white clay. So I'm just gonna back out to be able to play the animation. So it looks pretty good. Um, you know, nothing moved.

The, the, the ground didn't move. The, it looks like the,  there's some flickering and I think it's from the chair. Um, I think it's from the reflection if you look in the  bottom bright where the, the, the green meets the wall. I think it's from my chair blocking  the light in different ways. So just keep an eye out for that,  but it's not too dramatic that it won't, it, it,  it won't mess this up too bad. Cool.

So let's export this to the computer. I'm gonna back out to the menu and then choose select  and then select that project. Hit the box with an arrow here  and I don't want to gif, I want it as a export movie  and then I'm just gonna export it to my computer  and now we can finish that. So I'm gonna jump inside  of After Effects X now. So now that we're in after effects,  we can remove the white clay. Let's start by clicking and dragging this file into a new  composition by hovering over this little square  down here and letting go.

So now we have a new composition, I wanna fit it to frame  by hitting shift question mark and then we can scrub through  and see where we need to start removing the clay here. So I'm going to scrub forward  because we have this kind of yellow area here  that's from I think my chair reflecting off of the light  and then back onto the wall and it's changing a little bit. Let's choose a frame further along  that's a bit more consistent. So let's choose one right in here. So I'm gonna duplicate this layer by hitting command D  or control D and I'm gonna right click on it  and go to time freeze frame. I'm gonna turn off the layer by hitting the sound off  and the eyeball off  and then I'm just going to scrub back to the frame  that we need it on.

So I'm gonna start with this frame here  and I want to hit G to pull up the mask tool  so we can start drawing a mask  with this layer selected here. So all I'll have to do is click and drag  and I can start drawing a little mask around this area  that we need to eliminate. So now if I were to turn this back on with the eye  icon here, we can see that we've removed that piece of clay  and that's basically going to be the process  we're gonna repeat over and over. You can either animate the mask  by going toggling down masks,  or you can hit mm twice on the keyboard  to pull up all the options here  and hit the stopwatch next to mask path. So we could animate this path  or we could create a new layer for every frame. So that's the way I'm gonna do it just so  that I have a bit more freedom  and I'm not stuck to just those four points of a mask  or a bunch of messy masks.

So I'm gonna duplicate this layer,  but first I want isolate it just to that frame. So I'm gonna hit alt and then bracket, uh, left  and bracket right, so now we can kind of bring those down. We can also just click and drag those down here,  but I'm gonna hit alt bracket,  it's just a lot quicker that way. I'm gonna hit M to pull the mask  and delete that mask so I can start over  with this new layer. Now I can create a new mask hitting G and click  and drag as I need it to be drawn out  around this shape. Now when we start to go around the ball, we might need more,  uh, pieces to describe that area, more pieces  of the mask rather to the, to to help define that area  around the white clay.

If I turn this on, we can see it's working pretty well. We might see some pretty hard edges here. So one way around that is toggle down mask,  and then just to increase the feather. So I'm gonna hit eight here  and that helps to kind of blend those two together. And we might also need to choose a different frame later on. So I wanna duplicate this and drag it forward here.

And then I can just, instead of having to deal  with key frames, I can just use these new layers  and I can even just hit V  and then double click to grab all of them  and then just move them all down. I'm gonna hit V click off  and then now I can select individual points  and just adjust this. So we can see there's a slight difference here. So I might need to choose a better image here in a moment. So, um, that's just kind of the, the general issues you'll,  you're gonna run into when you're trying  to replace the white clay. So we could use this frame as well.

We can duplicate this and use this instead. So I'm gonna freeze frame while the the  scrubber is on that frame. I'm gonna freeze frame here and then just pull this up  to the top so I can keep track of the layers,  hit alt bracket to isolate it to that point, turn it off  so I can see the layers beneath it. I'm gonna delete this one because  that difference was a little too much for my taste. So the layer select, I wanna make sure I keep having the  layer selected, otherwise I'm gonna create a shape. So if you start creating a shape, um,  that creates a new layer, that's  because you don't have this layer selected.

It doesn't know that you want  to draw the mask on this layer. So that is basically how we can erase the  white clay from this  uh, from this animation. I'm gonna hit v click off  and then back on to select an individual point. And then I'm gonna go into the feather properties. The other way you can do it is also hit G twice. So you pull up this little feather tool.

So we can click and drag on this to create  a different feather distances on different points. So around the ball, if we want it to be a lot closer,  we can actually pull that down around the ball. So now when we click off  and we can see it's a, it's a lot cleaner, um,  than the other areas. So it's a lot smoother around here. So let's do that again For this frame,  I'm gonna duplicate this top layer  'cause that one worked pretty well. Hit V to pull up the selection tool  and then just bring this down, hit enter  to finish moving it, click away.

And then I can select individual points here. If I don't click away, then I'm not deselecting, um,  the entire mask. I want to deselect the entire mask so I can  have some more room to play. I also don't wanna be removing parts  of the image that I don't need to be. I'm gonna hold down space bar to get the hand tool  and then come back up here  and then just remove that area here  so you can kind of get the gist of where this is going,  that we need to remove every frame where this existed. And then also deal with the mask itself  because the mask needs to be feathered at different rates  or different amounts around the ball.

It needs to be very close to the ball here  and then very spread out everywhere else  to help blend it into the background here. So that hitting the G tool twice, uh, the,  the G shortcut will be very helpful for that. So I'm just gonna speed this up  so you can see the finished product  'cause it is a little bit time consuming  and I'll see you in a second. Now that we've removed the white clay from this animation,  we can add two more things to it if we wanted  to enhance it just a little bit more. And that would be the shadow and some motion blur. First let's cover the shadow.

Let's right click in the gray area, go to new solid,  choose a black color here and hit okay. Now I'm gonna choose the elliptical tool here. Click and drag underneath this  and I'm gonna hold down space bar to position it and let go. So we can actually just animate this mask. I'm gonna hit a key frame here on the mask path. I'm gonna increase the feather just a little bit  and go through this animation  to have it follow the sphere.

So one thing that for us to be able  to position it correctly, we need to know  what the position is vertically in the frame. So I'm gonna move this to where it should be  and we're going to reduce the transparency  so it matches what's in frame there. So I'm going to zoom in with command plus  or control plus, I'm gonna turn this off for one second  so I can see the outline of this. And I'm just gonna drag this to kind of match the outline  of the actual shadow here. And I'm gonna turn this back on by hitting the, the I here  hit T and then I'm just gonna drop the  transparency way down. I'm gonna drag this over to the side so we can see  if we can match that type of shadow here.

So it looks like the feather of the mask is a lot. So I'm gonna hit M to pull up all the mask stuff. Hit 12 here to reduce the feather. And that's looking pretty close. So what I can do is now go through the animation  and where there are frames of it on floating in the air,  I can have this underneath the sphere  and I wanna make sure it's in line with  where it's gonna contact the ground here. So I can see it's on this yellow line is where  the shadow should be.

So we have it here, we can go back to where it should be. I'm just gonna delete this first key frame that we made  and then just move it backward. So I'm clicking and dragging this, I'm gonna hold down shift  so it will horizontally snap  and only move in that direction. So now we have a pretty consistent Animation here  and it's auto key framing. So every time I move it, it's setting a key frame for me. And I wanna get rid of this on the frames  that it's the shadow is actually there.

So on a frame like this I'm gonna hit T pul opacity. I'm just gonna animate the opacity down to zero here. So I'm gonna go back one frame, click another key frame,  jump back to where it should be off, turn it to zero. Okay. And then we can do the same when we  need it to turn back on. So I'm gonna copy this frame, paste it in,  turn off the one  before it, then we can move the mask  by clicking, double clicking it  and then holding down shift to drag it  horizontally where it needs to go.

Let's jump to this frame and just match this up. And then we can copy and paste the key frames here  to turn it off and drag it in line with where it needs  to turn off and then drag it to  where it needs to turn back on. So I'm just shift dragging again so  that it's in the right spot. I'll do the same thing here. It looks like we're running our room on the solid here. For some reason it looks like maybe I positioned yeah,  the actual solid itself.

Um, so that was a mistake on my part. I can just key frame that here and key frame it here  and then just move it over  and then pick back up with the mask animation here. So I'm gonna hit you on the keyboard  and it'll pull up all the key frames  and then I can just drag this through again  and then hit T. So I'm copy and pasting only the opacity, key frames, copy,  paste, drag this in line so we're getting rid  of it on the frame it needs to get rid of. And I'm gonna delete that one  because we're turning it right back  on right after that frame. So now I can click and drag this over.

We can do the same thing here. And now it's going to be off frame completely. So we can just end this layer here, alt, uh, a right bracket  and now it'll turn off. So we can finish the first part of this as well. And we can also add some motion blur to this if we wanted  by adding an adjustment layer right clicking new adjustment  layer, making sure it's on top,  and then adding a directional blur to the adjustment layer. And then we can increase the blur length  and we can change the direction.

Let's just go really far with it. And then we can add a mask to this layer  so it's only affecting the sphere itself. So those are just a couple tricks to enhance this animation. I look forward to seeing what you make. Don't feel like you have to go this far with it. Um, it's just fun to play around in after effects  and see how far you can take it.

So in the next lesson we're gonna cover some next steps  and some of my own insights into your  journey as an animator. Thanks for watching.