ABSTRACT
The principle of the bouncing ball has been around since animation began, and it is very tempting to think it cliche to work with it. A ping-pong ball will bounce in a far different way than a soccer ball. It is all about weight, mass, and flexibility, and this always has to be borne in mind with any animated object or character, quite aside from the rubber ball challenge. With the bouncing ball, gravity will merely ensure that each bounce will get less and less, as the kinetic energy within the ball is unable to fight against the constant pull of gravity. Therefore, as the ball moves forward with a certain amount of velocity, the bounces of that ball will increasingly diminish and be less and less apart. If the ball were a metal cannonball, it would not be subject to shape shifting and that gives the animator the means to define the nature of the ball's mass.
