Maya Bouncing Ball Tutorial + Graph Editor Explained | A Step by Step Guide
Summary
TLDRThis tutorial video guides viewers on creating a simple bouncing ball animation in Maya using the graph editor. The instructor demonstrates how to set keyframes, adjust the animation's timing, and utilize auto keyframe tool for efficiency. The focus is on refining the animation's realism by adjusting the graph editor to reflect the effects of gravity, ensuring the ball's motion mimics a natural bounce. The video concludes with a brief on duplicating the animation and encourages viewers to subscribe for more content.
Takeaways
- 🎬 The video is a tutorial on using the graph editor in Maya for beginners.
- 🏐 The tutorial demonstrates creating a simple bouncing ball animation.
- 👁️ The importance of adjusting the ball's position to hit the ground at the right frame is emphasized.
- 🔑 Pressing 's' sets keyframes at specific frames to define the animation timeline.
- 🔧 Utilizing the auto keyframe tool simplifies the animation process by automatically setting keys as you move the object.
- 📊 The graph editor is introduced as a tool to fine-tune the animation curves.
- 📉 The concept of 'slow in and slow out' is explained to create a more natural motion.
- 🔄 The tutorial covers how to adjust the graph editor curves to simulate the effects of gravity on the bouncing ball.
- 🛠️ The 'break tangents' tool is highlighted for independent control of animation curve handles.
- 🎥 The final result is a more realistic bouncing ball animation that mimics the effects of gravity.
- 🔔 The video ends with a call to action for viewers to subscribe, like, and enable notifications for future content.
Q & A
What is the main topic of the video?
-The main topic of the video is teaching viewers how to use the graph editor in Maya to create a simple bouncing ball animation.
What is the first step in creating the bouncing ball animation?
-The first step is to create an empty scene and then create a sphere object to be used as the ball.
How does the instructor switch to the front view in Maya?
-The instructor holds the space bar, left-clicks on Maya, and chooses the front view.
What is the purpose of setting a keyframe at frame 1?
-Setting a keyframe at frame 1 establishes the starting position of the ball before it begins to bounce.
What is the significance of the 'auto key' or 'auto keyframe tool' mentioned in the video?
-The 'auto key' tool automatically sets keyframes whenever the object is moved, making the animation process easier.
How does the instructor determine the timing for the ball to hit the ground?
-The instructor adjusts the timing by observing the ball's position relative to the ground and checking the values in the channel box.
What does the instructor mean by 'tweaking the graph editor' to improve the animation?
-Tweaking the graph editor involves adjusting the curve handles to control the speed and timing of the animation, making it more realistic.
What is the 'ease in' and 'ease out' concept explained in the video?
-'Ease in' and 'ease out' refer to the gradual acceleration and deceleration of the ball's motion, respectively, to create a more natural animation.
How does the instructor use the graph editor to simulate the effect of gravity on the bouncing ball?
-The instructor adjusts the graph editor's curve to show a decrease in the height of each bounce, simulating the effect of gravity diminishing the ball's momentum.
What does the instructor do to fix the ball's motion when it hits the ground?
-The instructor selects the point where the ball hits the ground and adjusts the curve to create a sharp spike, representing the ball's rapid acceleration due to gravity.
What is the final step the instructor takes to complete the bouncing ball animation?
-The final step is to duplicate the animation and adjust it to create multiple bouncing balls in different directions.
Outlines
🎥 Introduction to Maya's Graph Editor
The script begins with a tutorial on how to use the graph editor in Maya for creating animations, specifically a bouncing ball animation. The instructor starts with an empty scene and guides viewers to create a sphere object, position it, and switch to the front view. The focus is on setting keyframes at specific frame numbers to animate the ball's movement, with an explanation of the auto keyframe tool for easier animation. The instructor also discusses the importance of timing and adjusting the animation to make the ball's bounce appear natural.
📉 Understanding Graph Editor Dynamics
This section delves into the mechanics of the graph editor, explaining how the ball's momentum is affected by gravity, causing it to bounce less high with each successive bounce. The instructor shows how to adjust the graph editor to reflect this by moving keyframes and using the 'move' tool. There's an emphasis on understanding the graph editor's interface, including the visibility of different channels and how they relate to the animation's translation, rotation, and scale.
🔍 Tweaking Animation Curves for Realism
The script continues with a focus on refining the animation to make it more realistic. The instructor discusses the concept of 'ease in' and 'ease out' in animation, demonstrating how to adjust the curve handles in the graph editor to achieve a smoother, more natural motion. The aim is to mimic the physical behavior of an object under the influence of gravity, where the object accelerates as it falls and slows down as it reaches its peak before descending.
🌐 Applying Physics to Animation
Here, the instructor connects the animation process to real-world physics, particularly the effect of gravity on the bouncing ball. The goal is to ensure the animation accurately represents the increasing speed of the ball as it falls and the decreasing speed as it ascends. The instructor shows how to adjust the graph editor to create a spike in speed just before the ball hits the ground and slows down as it loses energy, creating a more believable animation.
🔄 Refining the Bounce and Wrapping Up
The final part of the script involves fine-tuning the bounce of the ball to ensure it slows down and stops momentarily before bouncing again. The instructor uses the graph editor to create a sharp spike and a U-shape curve to achieve this effect. After making the necessary adjustments, a playback of the animation is shown to demonstrate the improved realism. The instructor also mentions duplicating the animation but corrects themselves, indicating a minor mistake in the process. The script concludes with a prompt for viewers to subscribe, like, and enable notifications for future content.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Graph Editor
💡Animation
💡Keyframes
💡Auto Key
💡Gravity
💡Tangents
💡Bouncing Ball
💡Frame
💡Channel Box
💡In and Out Tangents
💡Perspective View
Highlights
Introduction to using the graph editor in Maya for beginners.
Creating a simple bouncing ball animation in an empty scene.
How to switch to the front view in Maya.
Adjusting the ball's position to hit the ground at the correct timing.
Using the channel box to set keyframe values.
Setting keyframes for the animation by pressing 's'.
Enabling auto keyframe tool for easier animation.
Adjusting the ball's bounce timing and height.
Explanation of frame numbers and their relation to the ball's bounce.
Fixing the ball's floaty animation issue by tweaking the graph editor.
Saving the file after making adjustments.
Understanding the effect of gravity on the ball's bounce.
Using the graph editor to adjust the animation curves.
Selecting and moving keyframes to adjust the bounce height.
Focusing on the 'translate y' channel for vertical movement.
Explanation of the graph editor's curve and its relation to the ball's motion.
Applying linear tangents for a constant speed effect.
Adjusting the curve to create a more realistic bouncing effect.
Using 'ease in' and 'ease out' to simulate the ball's interaction with gravity.
Breaking tangents to control individual handles without affecting others.
Final adjustments to create a more realistic and consistent bounce.
Playing the final animation to demonstrate the improved bouncing ball.
Encouraging viewers to subscribe and like the video for more content.
Transcripts
[Music]
hello guys
welcome back to my channel
so today i'm gonna be showing you guys
on how to use
graph editor and maya if you're totally
new
this is the video for you okay firstly
this is an empty scene and we're gonna
start to create some very very quick and
simple animation
so let's create a bouncing ball so you
can click from here we have this
sphere object and i'm just going to move
it up
up to here and to
switch to front view i can hold space
bar left click maya
and chooses front view slide down
and firstly i have to adjust until the
bottom of this ball
kind of hits this ground
okay next i have to click on channel box
and i can see that this should be in the
values of one okay which is the
exact timing where it hits the ground
okay so at first
i'm going to go to about you know like
15 frames or 10 frames
i'm going to set a key by pressing s
okay press s to set a key
and then i'm going to go back to frame 1
and move it up to a certain distance
like
maybe somewhere here and press s to set
a key
and to make the animation easier it is
best that you turn on this
auto key or the auto key keyframe tool
that whenever you move it will set key
for you
so at first in the air drop down
so the next time it bounces up it should
be
having last frame so maybe around here
let's check again the first time it was
here the second time it was
here okay and after that
so plus 8 plus it will be 26
so for 26 it will be about
1 again and after that
so this is eight frame and the next time
it bumps it up it will be six frame
which is 32
so 32 is somewhere around here
and plus six 32 plus six will be 38
so 38 is back to one
okay and next we'll have 42
42 it's here and
46 so 38 42
46
come on 46 is one
and next we have the plus two frame
which is
48 and we just moved the ball
up a little and after that 50
let's put let's put it back to one okay
so
our ball is bouncing from here let's hit
the spacebar
okay and back to here and checked okay
so we have this
perspective and
you can see like from different angle
okay you can click here side it looks
like that
at first it should be one
okay sorry i think i made a mistake
somewhere here
so let me just pull it back up here
because just now i click the spacebar
and then
somehow like it makes it back to zero
so let's play so right now that ball
seems floaty okay so it kind of like
floating
on the water surface it doesn't really
feel that it is hitting the ground
okay so that's that that's the next port
that we
are going to move into so in order to
make this
bouncing ball looks better we have to
tweaking graph editor
so let me do a quick save file
just save it
[Music]
here
ball zero one
okay so a quick explanation about the
situation here
is we drop it from here somewhere in the
air
it it drops to the ground and it bounces
back
so whenever it bounces back it is being
affected by the gravity and gravity will
somehow
lessen the amount of the momentum that
it goes up
so it only uses eight frame compared to
the first time it uses ten frame to drop
so a frame to to went up it framed to
drop
and then the energy is getting less and
less every time it bounces up
so six frames six frame four frame four
frame
two frame two frame if you want some
more then we can get this
you know like one frame up a little
in one frame down to one
okay so next let's go into the graph
editor by going to windows
animation graph editor
okay so let's bring it over here and you
can see that it is not
seem to be that good so so far this part
is looking good
and this part it seems like the second
time it bounces it up
it should be lower than the first one
okay so we have to go to here
and select that click w
w for move okay this tool
and hold down shift key
hold down middle mouse key and move it
down
just like so all right
and to to kind of guide you guys through
what is happening around here inside
graph editor is that
so you see we selected
this ball and it says that
this is shear one so we have p sphere
one
and in this graph it shows you all the
items
that is keyable or it is being key
whenever you set an animation so we can
see that because whenever we say
animation we press
s so it keys on the visibility translate
translate translate so translate we have
three channels
as you can see here trying to say x y z
rotate x y z
scale x y z and invisibility on
and we have this as well we have this as
well
but if you select all you can see
everything but somehow only green color
shows the full graph and the rest they
kind of like stop here
because at the very first we hit s
and second we hit s after that we just
keep moving because we have that
auto curve sorry auto key turn on
and it will set key automatically for us
so the rest is kind of not
doing much as i'll say like it doesn't
change it doesn't show anything
so you should just focus on this
and what is this this is translate y so
translate y
meaning moving in y direction
so you can see that whenever our ball is
moving
dropping down it's going in this green
color
and that green color indicates
y direction let's have a look
you see that y is green
okay so that is why it is showing
only green color only green color is
changing in
values over time
okay so it shows that it is starting
from
around a value of six which is the
distance
from ground zero one
to six so it drops the second time it
bounces it up
it's around like forty eight four point
eight and the third time about three
point eight
the fourth time about two point eight
the fifth
time it's about 1.6 and the
last time it's about you know like one
point
to 1.3 okay so let's make it more
consistent
so these points actually means the
height okay
where the the ball went up or bounce
back up
again so i'm gonna select these
kind of moved it around to make sure it
goes more consistent
and next i would like to select all of
this in translate y
to click f so f means focus
so focus meaning that it kind of
re-resumed the whole thing
and fit it into the the the graph editor
to into a bigger picture so that you can
see it better
okay and of course you can zoom in and
now like on your own by
holding down alternate and right click
and drag
okay and the next thing it's what does
this
you know like as looking curve means
so this is one of the most important
part and the most fundamental things
whenever you start working with graph
editor
[Music]
so let me start with something simple
all right so if you're looking at this
whenever we play you feel like the ball
it's kind of
slowing whenever it's about to drop
and then it feels like it is going back
up and then suddenly it slows down
so let me kind of shrink this down to
just about like 52
okay so it feels like it is slowing down
and then whenever it
bounces back up it's kind of slowed down
and somehow that that motion doesn't
seem to be stable like it is floating
it doesn't feel like it really hits hard
on the ground
so there is a sense of ease in at ease
out so in the term of animation we call
it slowing slow out or
is in is out all right
and how do we really define
what is is in is out okay
so let me try to tweak this
so i select the point and i select the
handle i kind of click w
and move it down
and kind of click this and moved it up
or i can just go to here select all
and i'm going to choose this option so
let's choose this option
this is linear tangents so whenever we
set the linear tangents
it means it just goes all the way you
know
without slowing in without slowing out
okay just go linear
okay let's have a look so at first level
you can see here at first
it's starting here in a second it
reaches here
so the distance in between here and from
two to three
it's about the same that it goes all
just linear without slowing down or
without speeding up
okay so if you go back to here and play
okay so it doesn't really feel that it
is slowing down you just keep moving
on its own with the same speed so as in
like you're traveling
in the highway 16 miles per hour just
keep moving keep moving without slowing
down
so um let's go back to here
let's let's stop it for a while let's go
back to here
so it means something so whatever you
see a diagonal line straight without
curve
it means linear okay it's all the same
here
and you can't have it leaner all the way
that bouncing ball will still looks a
little bit weird
so what we have just now it's
applying an auto tangent so auto
tangents it will
make it auto like this and from here
it's sort of progress slowly because you
can see the curve like kind of slow
slowing in alright so it progressed a
little bit
and then further down further
whenever it's moving over time you can
see that
it's suddenly speed up so from here from
one to two
frames it only progressed this little
and from two to three it progressed
this much and from here to here
it progressed even more take this
straight line as a guideline so whenever
it comes to here
you can see that you try to draw a line
through here
and then it goes all the way down it
progresses this
much so comparing this distance and this
distance
from number two this actually increased
a lot
so we can say that it started out slow
ease in slow in and it progresses
speed up in the middle and in the end
this is an inverted curve of this so
this means
slow out all right so it kind of slows
down whenever
it's about to hit this point and then it
slows in again
ease in again speed up in the middle
east out
he's in speed up is out so it repeats
the same thing like
same phenomenon through the whole thing
okay but what really happens here it's
so from our understanding of the physics
whenever we drop it it goes faster and
faster and faster and the fastest point
whenever it hits the ground all right
and then whenever it bounces back up it
goes slower slower slower slower slower
until it loses all the energy and it
stops it
stops there for a while and then it
starts to
going slow faster faster fast fastest
and hits the ground again all right so
that is
the correct or logical way of how we we
explain this
in accordance to the gravity gravity
field
if we do not have a gravity people won't
die like jumping down
from the rooftop right okay
so because there's gravity like you
can't stop you can't slow down you just
have to
keep going faster and faster and faster
and hits the ground like
bye-bye that's it end of the day okay
so this is the point where
it hits the ground all right
so whenever it's about to hit the ground
it has to go faster and faster and
faster
so we have to tweak this so let's
click this so right now you can see that
it it shows you
a spike at the point where it hits the
ground
so we can change all of that
hold down shift key and select all the
points
and apply this so right now you can see
that it goes like
and then slows down and faster faster
faster
okay slows down and stop in
faster and faster and hit okay let's
have a look at the animation
okay so it feels slightly better but
still
i kind of think that whenever it bounces
back up it should get
slow and kind of stopping
for a while like maybe zero point few
seconds
zero point few not a few seconds okay
few seconds it's not logic all right
so zero point few seconds and before it
drops again
okay so how do we fix that so right here
i need to make sure this goes like
very sharp and very sharp up
and then again like kind of like a u
shape
so i can select this point and select
that handle
and use my minimalist key and try to
move it but you can see that
whenever i move one side the other side
is being affected
so i have to select these point
and choose this break tangents so break
tangent meaning that
so you can see that from here it
switched to here
break tangent meaning you can control
one side
on its own without affecting the other
one
just select the handle middle click and
move the curve
go to here select that select the handle
click w middle middle mouse click
sorry i have to break it first and moved
all the way up to here so making sure
that this is a
very nice spike
okay break the tangent select the point
select curve and move it like this
with it like so select all the points
and
break the tangent okay you can reselect
that
click after refocus then you can see
that it shows you
a much better vision of how
you should be it's like that
i'm gonna move it that way move it that
way
okay move it that way
okay all right
let's play
okay so right now it really have a big
difference as you can see here
that whenever it hits the ground the
moment it hits the ground it bounces
back up
right away without slowing down without
stopping
and then whenever it bounces back up to
the sky
somewhere in the middle it slows down
and it stops
for a while and then continue to drop
again
so let me kind of extend this
okay so that is a much better bouncing
ball
so hopefully with this simple animation
and the simple explanation about graph
editor
it gives you an insight on how to use on
how to tweak graph
and before we end this lesson i'm going
to duplicate this
and move it in this direction
oops i think it doesn't
it doesn't duplicate the case okay
that's all right
so i think that's all
hopefully you guys learned something
today and if you
like my videos and you think this is
helpful to you
please subscribe to my channel and hit
the like button
and don't forget to turn on the
notification button as well
so that you won't miss any new contents
until then i will see you in the next
video
bye
[Music]
you
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