I didn’t have much of an idea going into making a basic obstacle course, as I didn’t know what would be an effective course that could show off multiple skill sets (not that I have any – yet). So, I decided to just have fun with the process and block out something that looks like it appeared in a 1980s classic platformer.
I am very aware that this course probably does not benefit the bouncing ball strongly, but because I am entirely new to this, I just wanted to make the process fun and enjoyable so that this could be a repeatable experience for me in the future. Same as the classic bouncing ball project before this one, I began with a rough idea where I would want the ball to travel and use the obstacles for an interesting interaction between the obstacles and the ball. After doing that, I began with positional tracking to create bounces of where the ball with go, and made sure to correct the graph for a smooth bounce.
I did try my best to give some personality to the stage by giving it a pinball effect, but it did not come out as great as intended. However, I still decided to go ahead with the plan to see it through and see if I could fix small details by adding more functions to the ball later. So, I added rotational spins. I was unaware of how fast the ball would spin on each individual bounce, as realistically the angle and speed of a bouncing ball would determine the number of rotational spins in each bounce. Since I didn’t know how to go about this problem, I focused just on getting the direction of the spin correct as a beginning stage, so that any future attempts can learn from this mistake.
After this step, I tried to add squash and stretch based on the height of each bounce as gravity would force the ball to squash more the higher the bounce. Whilst focusing on the squash and stretch of the ball, I decided to try my best to clean up the trajectory to make the bounces appear smooth and clean.
Overall, I am unsatisfied with this outcome, even at the beginning stage, there are too many mistakes and flaws that I can see at my level, therefore making it unimaginably painful for a trained eye. I think something that would have been useful would have been to provide primary research for the problems that occurred: (1) Using a ball in real life to see the degree of spins on certain angles and surfaces. (2) Seeing how high balls bounce at different heights and playing with the distances they cover. (3) Record data on how balls squash and stretch by finding slow-motion footage to provide more accurate results for a realistic ball feeling. Lastly, I could have made a more appropriate obstacle course that allows the ball to use its functionalities more appropriately.