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Simple Bouncing Ball P.2
This video is the continuation of Simple Bouncing Ball part 1
Please download the blender file here
69 comments
I'm just trying to find a ball that is rig like yours and doesn't have any animation on it. The Blend file provided is just an example of something finished. I want a ball with your rig, simple, not animated, so that I can play with it but I'm too newb to get in there and make it myself. I don't like this, not a good tutorial
@Andre Michaud I want to add, I know my animation principles, I just want a video that goes thru how to animate in Blender. Where is all the stuff I need. Like: Hey, the ball you see on the screen is here in the outliner, if you open that collection, you find this this and that. If you want to animate it, you select this. Now when I open the provided Blend file I feel just lost in the technical weeds. I have to revert back to Youtube unfortunately, and that s*cks
@Andre Michaud Hi indeed, it's not obvious to retrieve the starting point from the provided file. Especially if you don't know much about blender's links, libraries and data block management.
the file is packed as its name suggests. You have to unpack it with File>>external datas>>unpack linked library. The, turn the outliner in "display mode : blender file" to find where the sources files are located. You can do this using the small icon next to the outliner icon. The studio itself (camera and floor) is not external content, so u may append it to a new file. Then you can start the tutorial by referencing the ball.blend file like Nacho does. (and especially the GRP-Ball collection.
@André Michaud Can anyone help me at minute 16:05 of this video, because there is a mirrored or duplicated curved scale in the graph on the Y axis. I didn't understand this part.?
Hello, is the proxy rig you made in this section available in the new versions of Blender? I couldn't manage to find it
Whoa, i didn´t consider myself a beginner in Blender, at least not at modeling. Now it was time to get to animation properly, which i did only using keyframes yet. Though I am sure, the instructor is skilled and a milllion times better at blender than me, this is not the target of the tutorial that is marked as "beginner".
I must admit that i was a little disappointed about the fact, that this is not step by step. I can just follow what he does and barely quit, when the rig materialized magically out of thin air. No explanations given.
You can do better than that, especially if the tutorial is marked for beginners.....
@MO Same here. This is titled as "Animation Fundamentals" and suddenly here is some proxy, bones, arrows, etc... Explanation in P.1 was also very hard to listen.
Great video, I felt some gap between "animation basics" and these lectures. So I decided to watch this video as theory. After I found a youtube video from LollypopMan called "Create a Ball Rig for Animation Practice". I followed that lesson, created my own ball and gained understanding how ball bones are built and how bones turned into those handles that initially intimidated me. Now, I feel more confident and ready to watch this video again and attempt to animate something similar. I'm enjoying the lessons so far, but I agree that some concepts could be explained in more detail, especially if the target audience is beginners. Additionally, small additions like on-screen keyboard shortcuts would be a welcome improvement.
If you are using Blender 3.3+ you will need to edit the rig file and make the hidden group that contains the rig visible in in view before you link grp-ball. Also proxies are gone. You now create a Library Override to use the rig on the link.
@Edward A Soard Thank you!
So now that I look at it more and more it seems like the rigs are all outdated and just kind of broken. I have tried to import, link, append and every single rig in the assets now seems to have problems. Maybe it would be a good idea to remove this outdated tutorial in lieu of something more up to date with rigs that just are not broken.
So it looks like "Make Library Override" has replaced "Make Proxy. Seriously I feel these videos all need some massive updates.
Hello I use version 2.93 of Blender for this tutorial. My problem is that the RIG Data proxy does not display on objects other than the balloons in the source file. So this technique does not work with the objects I model. What for?
Having a lot of trouble/frustration - using Blender 3.3 and very hard to follow. Could this series be updated please? Did some reading and got past the Make Proxy issue by using instead:
Object -> Relations -> Make Library Override...
THEN, in Scene Collection navigate to Collection -> GRP-Ball -> Hidden -> RIG-Ball. Make sure RIG-Ball is selected and then in Object Properties find the Visibility Area and tick "Show in Viewports"
Was able to follow on a bit after that, however, in the Action Editor I don't know how to make it show both "Ball" and "Assistant" channels - I have to work on them separately?
Other than version differences, there's a lot of assumed interface knowledge that goes beyond "Beginner" I think - especially rig controls and proxies/library overrides.
They should really update these tutorials
This series contains some amazing insight into animation principles , and in that respect it is great. Unfortunately it skips over the practical Blender skills that many viewers of the course will be lacking. A more step by step approach, building on practical blender skills at each stage as well as teaching more general animation principles would be more accessible and useful. The 'Geometry Nodes from Scratch" series is a great example of how to structure a tutorial course.
I'm using version 3.1, so there are things that have been removed or done differently, for example"make a proxy" i think was delete in this version.
@Alejandro Gonzalez Vidal c’est ça rentre à une version ultérieure par exemple la 2.93 et que le ciel soit avec toi si tu penses arriver au bout.
So I downloaded Blender 3.1, trying to follow this but can't find where to make a proxy for the ball?? Object/ relations/ ...there is no more make proxy and ctrl+alt+P doesn't work as a short cut :/
@markusheinel0 j’ai eu le même problème que toi rentre à une version ultérieure par exemple la 2.93, et beaucoup de courage car il t’en faudra vraiment si tu souhaites arriver au bout.
Thank you Mr. Hjalmarsson and the Blender team for putting these together. Your work in making this sort of information more available is phenomenal and we couldn't thank you enough as a community. May all of your efforts be fruitful.
Interesting concepts... I may watch this just for the animation content, but it would be good to learn Blender as well while going through the content - as many have mentioned, this is hard to do with the current tutorial. It is challenging to follow if you are using blender 3.0 as features have changed... - for instance, I don't know how to rig up the ball without proxies (partially since this is my first time doing anything like this).
@Shawn Moffit Watch the blender fundamentals video before this in order to get a better grasp of how to use the software. Happy Learning!
Feels like so much has been missed from pt1 transitioning into this
Hello, I know this is such a beginner question, but I have a simple rigged character in a blend file, and I want to link it to another blend file. However whenever I try to link the character to another blend file, it just links the entire character along with the armature. In this video, only the character (ball) is linked, and the armature/rig only appears when "make proxy" is clicked? How can I properly link a rigged character? I'm not sure how to set up the original file to be linked. (I have my character mesh and its rig under the same collection)
Muy bueno el curso muy entretenido y muy explicado. :)
Where are those files ??? XD
Hi @Nacho Conesa, how can I make the handles visible even if I don't select the whole curve/parts of the curve? As of right now, I can only edit the handles by box selecting parts of the curve to make them visible. Thank you! :)
"She, or he or it, I don't know, whatever" Whoa, you're treading dangerous ground dude! Twitter might get mad at you.
Hey, for those of you who are stuck with the first few minutes (specifically with doing the proxy and it DOES NOT APPEAR the BALL), go to the course assets and download the file, there will be the ball which works correctly to do the link and the proxy. Enjoy animating:)
This tutorial is surely not meant for beginners.No explanations about channels, no explanations about how to insert keyframes for certain channels at certain positions. I gave up at around 9:50. No idea how to get to this starting position. I first have to look for a more basic tutorial about animation.
@Michael Schwarz @Nacho Conesa I agree with this comment. Though the instructor is clearly a very good animator in Blender, there was a lot that was skipped in a tutorial created for beginners. This tutorial didn't seem well-planned: the instructor seems like this he's making everything up as he goes. He is talking to himself a lot without explaining his thinking well. I also do not understand why the instructor's webcam was needed to be shown as it blocks the UI and is more distracting than helpful. Perhaps cutting to it for a few moments when necessary? Showing an overlay of the key commands being used would've been much more useful. The mouse & keyboard are very loud. We are never shown how one navigates the Dope Sheet & Graph Editor (zooming, isolating a channel, creating keys, etc.). Linking and Proxies are never explained. Some of the many hotkeys I had to search were: Shift+D to duplicate keyframes & Shift+H/Alt+H to toggle a channel's isolation in the Graph Editor. If this tutorial is many people's first lesson in Blender animation, I strongly suggest that it needs to be redone.
There are missing steps in this tutorial. The creator seems to be improvising from a general outline instead of taking the time to prepare things step-by-step.
There is a rigging tutorial on this website called "Humane Rigging". It's also an example of a good tutorial. It states what the tutorial is and what it isn't. It includes careful step-by-step procedures while also providing general concepts before, during, and after the procedures. The tutorial here, "Animation Fundamentals" so far has the concepts but lacks guidance for an example-based tutorial. It's like I'm watching a friend do things with Blender while I have no clear path for how to get started myself.
@mwksmith Totally agree, I stopped watching this video in the middle...
In other words, this has so far been a lecture, not a tutorial. It has been educational, not an instance of training. I know more about animation, but that's it. Again please refer to "Humane Rigging" for an example of a good tutorial, which also provides fundamental concepts.
I am watching this and wondering if there's not a way to preserve the volume of the object so you only have to squish the thing on one axis - the maintain volume modifier it seems to be called. Is this cheating? :)
*@ben.allen1886* as far as I remember, @hjalti will explain, there is a principle in animation to maintain the volume proportionally, therefore you cannot work on only one axis. Or do you mean a way to have the calculation done for you moving only one axis? how is the computer going to know what you want to do with your animation to that extend? I just think...
*@Gemma María Rull* it's a bone constrait that I ended up using - maintain volume. Basically when I squish one axis the others stretch and vice versa.
*@ben.allen1886* There's a nice addition he seems to have which I imagine could potentially be automated in a similar manner to what you are talking about where he has little handles for north, south, east, west, up and down so that he can create more customized squashing and stretching. I like the simplicity of the rig that Nathan Vegdahl talks about in Humane rigging, but I'm excited to learn enough that I can add that layer of handles to the cardinal points of the ball AND have it maintain volume(I haven't tried yet...)
@ben.allen1886 Yes by using a lattice deformer in the rig is one way. I did one in Modo it was super complicated even following a tutorial. I am just starting with blender this is going to be really hard to follow. Wish he would have gone slower like in the first vid. He gives some really good animation tips though.
@ben.allen1886 I also was wondering straight away why the Maintain Volume is not in the Rig. I created my own rig from the Humane Rigging Lessons that works nice. But I see I need to make some improvements to my own rig: I need a Root control and perhaps an additional helper for separate control for stretch.
Please try as much as possible to tell we the beginners what keys you are pressing or at least activate your screencast keys next time. It's hard to follow especially the dope sheet part, my curves cross the base (the ground on which the ball is supposed to bounce - I use G to move it).
I hope this helps for those who don't know the short cuts. V - set keyframe handle type( free, aligned..etc) R - Set keyframe type( Extreme, breakdown...etc) Ctrl tab - To switch between action editor and graph editor(Where he did the height editing and Squash and stretch)
@Henry Paul Ephraim Around the 13 minute mark where he "squeezes" the y position graph to fit the graph editor view - hit ctrl then hold the middle button down and manipulate with mouse movements.
@Stephen Brown you saved my life haha thank you
really like your silky smile seeing the life in the ball. That's the magic of animation
it looks like so
Why u need scale z axes while animating squash?
@Mirlan Zulumbekov Because z is the up and down axis(for people that see this in le future)
hello , i have trouble , when i link i cant see GRP collection , the file only show ball1 ball2..and extra :(
I can do the step of the very beginning I try and link the file that works and then I do proxy that works than type in rig and tons of stuff comes up but nothing called ball....what am I missing im so lost.... --edit im found what the issue is if you do all the steps but you need to put it in a collection and also I did the proxy from the windows not hotkey when you do it it will ask you which rig and you select the right one you should see the rig controls and than hit tab and pose mode to edit the sphere.
hello my frien, can you tellme where is the colection GRP-Ball? please :)
*@blenderfundabit* if you look under assets you should find it there it took me a min I tried to files that with the lesson and thats not it
*@dustin.meyer.001* thank you man :)
Dude It was great but not looking at the keys you are pressing is driving me crazy, I'm new-new to animation in blender or any 3D software and I get the main point you are getting at but not how you did it.
*@David OB* im having the same issues can anyone tell us the keys he presses for copying keys and changing to color im at 1232 and kinda lost at what keys are being used..
*@dustin.meyer.001* R-key
This would really help to have an overlay showing the keys used. Some hunting around the menus helped.
*@David OB* Same issue here. No key display at all. So, I have to play back the video many times to try what is the key that he used.
It would be nice to have included the bit where you added a rig. It just magically appeared. It's put me off a little bit as I like the whole process from a to z. I am trying to work out how to see the rig (bones) but it won't let me because it is a proxy. So there seems a whole step here which I am missing.
*@Andy Rumble* stuck because of this.
@Gabriel Moro Hey, You can download complete rig from beginner course, https://cloud.blender.org/training/animation-fundamentals/5d69ab4dea6789db11ee65d1/
@Andy Rumble This course is more advanced, prerequisite would be Introduction to Rigging. I would suggest you rather go through that first, its also in training courses here on website. I had the same feeling watching this course :D
@Andy Rumble Ball is already rigged here, https://cloud.blender.org/training/animation-fundamentals/5d69ab4dea6789db11ee65d1/
*@Andy Rumble* totally agree
*@tallaridaj* if you have a subscription you could go to the humane rigging course, they begin by teaching how to rig a bouncy ball for 2d animation(which is enough for at least the first part of this course. :)
Interesting that an apparently innocent ball needs already such a complex rig. But yeah, let's just understand everything why...
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