Be it Traditional 2d hand drawn animation or the modern 3d counterpart, no animator can escape the theory of the bouncing ball. The ball, the most liveliest object of them all is seen to represent the basic of kinetics and movement. Heavily dependent on the theory of squash and stretch, animators are able to start with mimicking an expression to a non organic character. Even animators who start learning with 3d softwares are introduced to this theory on how a ball behaves before moving on to more complicated stuffs. Some movies like chicken little(2004) still uses this stretch and squash technique to animate their character’s expressions. However, this exercise of the bouncing ball only applies to those who are in the filed of what I call toon animation. Animation in visual effects movie are different as they have to exactly simulate the characters movement as if it was a living breathing living thing. Avatar is a good example. THe technology and philosophy of animation may be changed drastically in future years, however I still think as long as comedy animation is around, the theory of the bouncing ball will stick.
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