Animating a rolling ball along a path

[phos4]

Hi all,

I am looking for the most effective way to animate a rolling ball (rolling like a bowling ball) that follows a given path like in the image below.
AFAIK KS 10 has the path animation only for cameras but not for objects.

I would need to create 20+ different animations, all with different paths geometries.

How would you go about it?

[DMerz III]

I don't think this is possible (maybe possible, but definitely not practical) to animation the motion in KS. If it were me, I would create the motion of the ball in a 3D suite such as Blender3D (free and open-source) and then bring that motion into Keyshot using an Alembic file (.abc).

There are some tutorials existing online for how to animate something like this in Blender if you google it, you could also use other 3D software such as 3DSMax, Cinema4D, Maya, etc. but those are not free programs.

[phos4]

Thanks DMerz,

I was afraid that would be the answer...

I worked with 3dsmax over 23 years ago, then came Bunkspeed & KS and haven't looked back since, but for animations max and others are for sure more suitable.

Have been experimenting with blender some time ago, so will give it another shot, don't feel like dusting my 3D Studio MAX R3 CDs from the dungeon...

Thanks again and let's hope KS brings in the path animation to objects soon.

[mafrieger]

let's hope KS brings in the path animation to objects soon.

@phos4:
just put it to wishlist topic, to make it visible and let others vote/comment for :-)
see https://forum.keyshot.com/index.php?board=8.0

There seems to be only a very old one:
 https://forum.keyshot.com/index.php?topic=12982.0

[phos4]

good idea mafrieger, done!

[mafrieger]

:-)

for everyone looking for it:
https://forum.keyshot.com/index.php?topic=28276.0

[INNEO_MWo]

AFAIK KS 10 has the path animation only for cameras but not for objects.

The keyframe animation works in the same way as camera path animation. Challenging might be the rolling effect.