By combining the bouncing ball and pendulum animation mentioned in previous two chapters, we can get the animation of the ball with the tail in this chapter. This kind of model is also the movement mode of many creatures in nature, such as squirrels, foxes and other creatures with large tails meet the similar movement law of the ball with the tail when they bounce and run.

Taking the video of a squirrel jumping as an example, the trajectory of its tail following its body is very representative, so animators abstracted it as a geometric model of a “ball with a tail”, as shown in the following video, which animates the characteristics of the movement of this form of ball.

On the basis of this animation, in the third week, I made a blocking version of the ball animation with the tail, but the trajectory of the tail is not complete, ignoring the “S” shape, “C” shape curve, etc., which has been made in the pendulum animation, the following homework link.

https://syncsketch.com/sketch/MTg3ZTdhNTk5/

In the assignment of the fourth week, I modified the animation after the revision of the class assignment in the third week. The following is the link of the assignment.

https://syncsketch.com/sketch/MmU0M2Q3Njhk/

As an important component of basic animation principle, pendulum animation is an indispensable part of basic animation training. As a classical model in physics, its motion principle has been well quantified, so it can be easily explained from video resources on the Internet.

In the above video, the characteristics and principles of pendulum motion are well analyzed from the perspective of physics, and the detailed physical phenomena are started to provide a theoretical basis for the production of pendulum animation.

The following Maya tutorial explains in 3D software what needs to be considered in the actual animation process from the perspective of animation, which is very inspiring to me. Here is a link to my assignment after it was uploaded to syncsketch.

https://syncsketch.com/sketch/YzQ5ZjFmZDNm/