Huizinga’s Theory of Play Compared with Final Fantasy VII

According to Huizinga, previous research has attempted to define play’s function, but if it has a function is “not play”. Therefore he does not attempt to describe play’s psychological and physiological functions but rather describes it in a social context. His main concern is to grasp the value and significance of manipulated images that play is based on. Also the action of play and it as a culture factor in life. Play and culture are interwoven into each other.

The following essay will compare Huizinga’s definitions of the characteristics, functions and elements of play with the game Final Fantasy VII.

The main characteristics of play

1.1 play is not “ordinary” or “real” life – it is stepping out of real life into a temporary into a tempory sphere of activity with a disposition all of it’s own
1.2 its secludedness, its limitedness – The amount of time and space. repetition and alteration for every time it is played and in its structure.
1.3 it creates an order, is order – it brings a temporary limited perfection through rules.

The function of play

2.1 The contest for something or the
2.2 representation of something.
2.3 Or together as a representation of a contest or a
2.4 contest of representation.

Elements of play

3.1 order
3.2 tension
3.3 movement


Huizinga’s theory compared to Final Fantasy VII

Final Fantasy VII is originally a console game for the Playstation and was released in 1997. It is a good example of a turn-based role-playing game and many others are very similar in their structure. There is usually an interactive world with thresholds within it, a world map and separate battle scenes that act as a gutters or transition areas between thresholds in the narrative. The following is the attempt to compare Huizinga’s theory of play to this game.

The main characteristics of play

1.1
Though one gets serious and absorbed into the game play and the acts may be a serious chore for the characters within the storyline, it is an act of leisure for the player. For example, the battle scenes would be a matter of life or death for the character’s yet is a game for the player. The player is always aware that the event is fiction and not real.

1.2
There is limited in length because there is a definite beginning and end to the game. Also there are limited spaces within the game that the player cannot advance through until they’ve accomplished certain tasks such as defeat a monster in a battle scene. Though one can generally play it their own pace there are events within the game where the character has a limited amount of time such as when Cloud only has ten minutes to escape from the reactor before it explodes.

1.3
Rules with in the game are most evident with in the battle scenes. The primary rule in the game is that player has to defeat the boss before he or she can advance and cannot flee from boss battles either. Also if all player’s character’s run out of health then it is game over. Rules may also work to the player’s advantage because a boss may be weak to certain elemental spells such as fire, ice, or thunder and the player can use these it if they can identify these advantages.

The player also may have to solve a puzzle in an area before he or she can advance. For example, while entering the 2nd reactor, the player has to press a button consecutively with the other characters before the door will open so they can advance.

The function of play

The battle scenes are where one is in a contest with the game itself for victory. The adversaries in the stories challenge the player and each side’s goal is to defeat each other by depleting the other sides health. These battles can be considered as a representation of a contest.

Elements of play

3.1
Order results from the limitedness and rules that are placed within the game. This results in tension and the relief from tension. The game does not contain any cheat codes so the rules of the game cannot be broken.

3.2
Tension is brought from the narrative, game play and the combination of both. Tension in the narrative would be the uncertainty of the events that have occurred in the present, past, or future. For example, the truth behind Cloud’s past becomes questionable further in the story when Tifa reveals a different version of the story to the other characters.

Tension is also brought from the game play such as the battle scenes, puzzles and mini games. An interesting factor about the game is that it contains mini games within the main game itself. For example Golden Circle where one can play arcade games within the prefabricated world with the main character in a video game arcade.

Tension is also brought from the narrative and the game play combined because the battle scenes and the puzzles supplement the tension of the storyline as they restricts the player from advancing in the same event. A adversary may discuss his intentions which builds up the tension before he attacks which results in a battle scene. Random battles while travelling across thresholds also bring tension because the player is surprised by a sudden restriction in movement and is only relieved once they have defeated the enemy

3.3
The element of movement would be how the player has to explore the world and solve puzzles to advance. He or she has freedom to interact and explore the world in any order unless restricted from a certain area by a puzzle or a battle scene. Movement in the battle scenes is determined by the choices of commands by the player that determines the result of the battle.

The Role of Thresholds in Final Fantasy VII

According to Laurie Taylor, comics and video games are similar because they are both more spatial mediums rather than sequential. This is because of the interactivity that the viewer has with them. In her article she deals with the spatial aspects of the mediums by addressing the use of ‘exacting thresholds’. These are "places where the viewpoint that dramatically changes after movement over a specific line or point" with games and the panels of comic books (Taylor).

The following are the similarities of the thresholds between comic books and video games indicated by Laurie Taylor.

Thresholds
Comics book thresholds are indicated by the panel borders and gutters that separate images.
Video game thresholds are the video frame spaces that only shift to the next space when the player stimulates it.

Focus
The center of the panels of comics are not the only focus but also the layout as a whole may bring a focus to certain parts of the page.
With video games, though the focus is the center of the screen like film, the focus can be changed by the player so they can view the space as a whole.

Retracing
Comics can be reread or retraced easliy without disrupting the flow of the story.
Some video games require the player to retrace certain spaces to advance through game.

Direction of a linear path.
The creators of comics attempt create the layout in a manner so that the viewer follows a certain flow of reading.
Games are also made so that the player is lead in a certain direction, yet the player can take another route at their own will.

Multiple sequentialities
Comic book panels may be placed as a collage so the reader reads them insequentually yet is still be able to read them sequentailly.
Games also allow the player to experience areas in any order yet they can still follow the intended route.

Spatially judged time
The space in a comic book judges time though time may be represented differently in panels.
The amount of space the player moves through judges the time in a game unlike films where one is forced to experience the movie at a set pace.

Direction of time
Artists in both mediums find it difficult to indicate time because the viewer has the freedom to experience the mediums at their own pace.

Division of Panels
Spaces in games are usually part of a large one collectively. These large areas can be considered larger structures that are seperated from each other.
Pages in comic books can also be considered as larger structures that are separated by turning the pages.
Both mediums do not have ‘spaces in which the story of the game "happens" but rather landmarks for the work of reading’ (Taylor).

Conventions for spatial creation
As games draw on cimematic conventions they also draw on the spatial conventions used in comics such as changing perspectives on the same scene or limiting the viewers vision of a scene.

Interrelating Panels.
Some games use 2D backgrounds that may be considered to be flat and lack depth. It’s the interrelation between these panels that give the illusion of depth just like comic panels do.

Doors as transition spaces
Loading areas in games may use a simple animation or image to indicates the transition from threshold space to another.
Comics panels and gutters also indicate the transition from one threshold to another. They both mark and divide structures of both mediums.

Final Fantasy VII (game)
Though it may not be as impressive as when it was first released in 1997, it still is considered by many to be the best game over created. For it’s time it was impressive graphically, with gampley, with it’s narrative and sound. It’s one of many of Role Playing games from the Final Fantasy series.

The story revolves around a company which extracts a substance out of the planet and by doing so is killing it. The main characters are a rebel group who attempt to stop the company from damaging their world any further. As the story unfolds one learns of the charcter’s history, each ones version of the past, and the truth behind their pasts. Also the goal shifts from defeating the company to defeating Sephiroth, the main antagonist of the game.

Though Taylor, the writer of this article, compared thresholds in comics to survival horror games, some role player games also use thresholds in the same manner. This game is an example of one of these games.

Thresholds
This game uses 2D backgrounds and static views much like horror games and comics use. When one passes a certain line in a space, the view changes to another space. For example, when one walks into a door in the background threshold will change to the interior of a building.

Focus
Though one cannot move the camera view such as one can in other games, a large area is viewed as a whole. A certain object may have focus drawn to it by standing out from the background. For example, lighting is used in the slums from the Neon lights which brings focus to what they signify. This directs the player to areas that he or she can access.

Retracing
One often has to retrace areas in a parts of a game to advance. For example, in the begging of the game, Cloud has go deep in to a reactor to plant a bomb, and then retrace his steps to escape before the reactor explodes.

Direction of a linear path.
Items or objects that a character must collect may stand out from the background so that the player knows to pick it up or stimulate it.
For example, items may stand out from the background by being three dimensional while the background is two dimensional.

Multiple sequentialities
The entire game can be read as a whole because one can go anywhere on the planet of the game at any time, unless intentionally restricted. Though there is an intendend linear path that one has to follow to complete the game, one can freely travel anywhere on the whole planet.

Spatially judged time.
The time one takes to move and advance through in the game is judged by the amount of space covered by the player. The player dictates the pace unlike linear media such as film. The game even records the amount of time that is taken to play the game which can be viewed at the menu.

Direction of time
There is no indication of day or night during the game and no exact date or time for the events that occur. This is because the player has the freedom to play the game at their own pace. The only parts where time is a factor is when one has a time limit in the game to attain a goal. For example, Cloud only has ten minutes to escape the reactor before it explodes.

Division of Panels
The cities or towns can be considered larger structures that are seperated from the world map.
Conventions for spatial creation
An area may suddenly be shown in a different perspective so that it would appear more dramatic. For Example, when the main character, Cloud runs away from the soldiers that are persuing him, the view changes from an angle of streets to another perspective as a cut scene.

Interrelating Panels.
Because FFVII uses 2D backgrounds, there are usually multiple perspectives of them that give the viewer the illsion of depth such as in the scene when Cloud is being persude by the soldiers.

Doors as transition spaces
When a battle occurs the player is transferred from a version of a space that has a 2D background to a version of the same space that has a 3D background, and a different style for the character’s. These areas seem to be similar to gutter’s in comic books because they separate thresholds in the narrative. One has to complete and defeat the villian before they can advance in the story. The world map can also considered a gutter because one has to use it as a crossing between important areas that are thresholds in the game.

The 4th dimension
Comics can represent different times simutaneously and separate at the same time. Though this is not indicated by Taylor there is and example in FFVII where Cloud tells a story about his past and the player can move and interact in his past as if it were the present. The scenes also transfer from the past to the present when he is telling his story and back to the moments in time in his story.

Text
Text is placed like boxes much like speech bubbles are placed in comic books. They are positioned according to where the character’s are placed on the screen.

Working With a Self Made Rig Compared to Working With the Default Rig of XSI

Since rigs are what allows one to control models, the type of rig that one uses is what will allow certain parts of the model freedom and flexibility. This is why it is critical that one has the right type of rig for the purpose that the model is intended for.

XSI has a default rig and this can be created by clicking the ‘Animate tab’, then on the ‘character tab’ and selecting 'Biped Guide'. This creates a skeleton that one can transform into the right shape by positioning it inside the model that one intends to create a rig for. Once it's the size of the body parts of the guide are correct, one can create a rig from it by selecting the Biped Guide, clicking on the character tab and selecting 'Rig from Biped Guide'. A menu will appear that allows one to choose the characteristics of the rig that will be created. One would select certain characteristics depending on the purpose for the model that this rig will be used on. After clacking 'ok' in the menu the rig will be created. An advantage of using the Biped Guide is that one can create as much rigs as they desire all at the same scale.

The problem with using these rigs though is that they have bugs and do no always work in the manner that they are intended to. For example, one may save their scene and find that the Biped Guide is not in the same scale that it was created in. One may also find that the rigs created from it are in different positions when one loads a saved scene of them.

If one compares this to making ones own rig it will not be able to have all the distinct characteristics that one will have from creating their own rig from scratch. Knowing how to making a rig empowers one with the ability to give distinct functions to the model that may not be available to the default rigs. Also one won't be burdened with bugs unlike the default rig.

Sin City – The Film Adaptation from the Original Comic

When an adaptation is made from one medium to another, challenges occur that effect how successful the transition between the two mediums will be. This is because the different mediums have their own distinct advantages and disadvantages. To make the most successful transition between them one should be aware of these differences so that one can make an adaptation that is as loyal to the original as possible. An adaptation may also be considerably different from the original by being another perspective or approach to the original story. However the case, one must have an understanding of the challenges of transitioning a story between media to decide what approach to take and what kind of adaptation to make. The creator of the original comic was a co director so seemed to considerably help with these decisions. The following attempts to discuss the film adaptation of the Sin City stories from the original comic books by discussing these challenge’s indicated by Pascal Leférve.

In Pascal Leférve’s article, "Incompatable Visual Ontologies", he indicates problems that occur when making an adaptation from a comic book to film. These problems are:

1. The deletion/addition process that occurs with rewriting primary comics texts for films.
2. The unique characteristics of page layout and film screen
3. The dilemmas of translating drawings to photography
4. The importance of sound in film compared to the ‘silence’ of comics.
   

Sin City

1.
The time one reads a story in a comic and views it on screen is different. A story may take longer to read in the comic because the viewer reads at their own pace and may take more time to view a drawing, page or panel. The viewer may turn back a few pages to return to an event that previously occurred in the story or view panels on a page in any order they desire. This is why comics have a more non-linear kind of narrative. Films on the other hand are more of a linear medium. The viewer is forced to follow a set path in the story at a set times and one cannot view the events at their own pace.

This is why the film adaptation of the sin city movie had to combine multiple stories into one film. This is not so much of a problem because stories in the original comic overlap by an event or character from one story often briefly appearing in another or characters in the story referring one from another story. When these stories are put on film they all relate and link together so that the film’s stories all work as a whole. For example, the character Marv dies at the end of his story during the course of the movie yet is later seen still alive in Dwight’s story. This is because the stories exist at different times. It may be an attempt of the director to allow the film to be as non-linear as the comic is.

These changes effect how text is used converted to dialogue in film. Certain words may sound appropriate as text in a comic but may not sound as good or relevant on film. Words as text are deleted or altered to suit the progress of the story of the film. For example, in the begging conversation between detective Hartigan and his partner is longer in the original comic than in the movie. An example where text has been altered is when Dwight comments on how Marv would be right at home in an ancient battlefield. This comment was originally made during a different story in the comic.

2.
The frames and page layout in the Comics are more regular and rectangular. Therefore, when they are converted to film there is not as much of a problem because the screen is rectangular. Despite this, the screen cannot change shape as a frame in a comic can. Though other movies attempt to use split screen it is not used in the Sin City movie. This may be because the director may have decided that this technique may be problematic because it draws the viewer’s attention away from the story and towards the technique itself. The camera is also mostly static in the film. This may be because that the director wanted the views to resemble the static frames in the comic book.

3.
The film is very faithful to the style and appearance of the drawings in the comics. The whole film is almost completely black and white just as the comic is. It also uses single colours to bring focus on certain subjects, For example the yellow senator’s son. The each character also appears to have individual lighting to give them the same high contrast and highlights as they have in the drawings in the comics. These lights are also used to show features of the faces such as Marv’s deep wrinkles. The backgrounds are pre-rendered so they seem to have a similar other worldly quality that the comics do. They tend to go from naturalistic to having the extremely high contrast quality of the scenes in the comic.

The one aspect that the live action film does not capture is the use of line. The line in the comic tends to be hard-edged and more or less intense to express events and characters. For example, females tend to have purely white faces with little use of line while male character’s face have more lines drawn to depict their hard features. The characters in the comic also have more abstract features, some character’s event tending to look like cartoon characters such as the Barman the story ‘Family Values’. The techniques of drawing style and the abstraction tell more about the subjects. Marv and the yellow senator’s son seem to be the only character in the film with these kinds of abstract feature’s that is more similar to the comic.

Marv has more harder and monumental facial features, which is not natural for a normal human being to have. The senator’s son appears to be made to appear like a cartoon character such as the late 1800’s newspaper strip cartoon character, ‘Yellow Kid’. The style of the senator’s son seems to refer to this yellow kid because his resembling features of the stubbly nose, bald head, large ears and the face. Also the colour that was chosen to colour him is yellow.

4.
Since the comics style resemble early 1900’s black and white detective movies the director may have studied these movies as an influence to the music and accent of the character’s since the comics cannot tell as much except from the writing style of the text. Though the music of the film seems to be similar to the music from these older films it still sounds distinct and otherworldly. The character’s tone of voice also resembles these movies yet seem to be ‘over acted’ to suit the style of the movie. Without getting much influence of what the music, how dialogue would sound like from the comic the films sound still seems to work coherently and express the mood of the comic.

In conclusion, despite some minor differences between the comic and the film, it is still a great adaptation and may be considered the best that there has ever been between a comic and film. The directors have a full understanding of the comic since one of them wrote the comic itself whereas most do not have this kind of understanding of the content that they are about to transfer to live action film. It does not only give respect to the original stories but also the visual style and mood of the original comics. Though there have been a few alterations made, this was so that the film worked as a film. There were considerations over the similarities and the differences of the mediums of film and comic.

Filmic and Comic Visual Narrative Techniques

The following essay is a comparison between the visual narrative techniques between films and comic books. These techniques have been extracted from the articles called “Imagetextuality 'Cutting Up' Again” by Donald Ault and “The Possibility of Minimal Units in the Filmic Image” by Sophie De Grauwe. The following are points that are concerned with the narrative of different mediums, which will be compared in the conclusion.

Comic book Narrative techniques

According to Ault, comic books have three aspects which are the:

Imagery order - the pictoral dimension
Symbolic order - the linguistic dimension
Real order - the interruptions or cuts in the body-space of the page

The Narrative Techniques that comic books use are:

The use of an undivided image to illustrate a verbal text - The word spaces cover parts of the images on the page so that one has to use their imagination to compensate for the rest of the image.
Fragmentation of the gaze – This allows one to see a character from different places at the same time or different places at different times
Cut and the suture - this invokes subtle temporal and spatial discrepancies that produce a visual surplus or excessivity. Simultaneous, different spatial "perspectives "
characters relating indirectly to the reader and characters relating directly to the readers
shifts in aspectual incommensurability – same character goes through radical transformations
cutting in the body of the page so severely that it calls attention to the surface of the text.
cutting up frames into (dis) ordered fragments.
myself seeing myself - This momentary allusion to the desire to master the imaginary by transferring it to the fortuitous actions


Producing identity through the failure of representation:

· multiple intersecting trajectories of misrecognition.
· relay of signifiers,
· explicit mobilization of the roles of metonymy and metaphor.
· disruption of the suture of the imaginary and symbolic by the real

The different narrative strategies:
the gaze,
the imaginary,
the symbolic,
and the real

Film Techniques

De Grauwe has a social semiotic approach to analysing the minimal units of narratibve in film that are:

Abstraction,
Discreteness,
Iconicity,
Economy, and
Arbitrariness

Representations represent dynamic relations between participants. These processes are represented by vectors (diagonal lines) or directional movements.

One-participant action process - action realized "by the vector created by the diagonal line of action
Symbolic attributive process - symbolic, realized by juxtaposition (establishes the identity of the Carrier, i.e. what the Carrier means or is)

Interpersonal metafunction
(between the producer and viewer

size of frame - eg "close-up" "long shot"
horizontal and vertical angles
moving camera
"speech functions" or "speech acts",
modality "truth value or credibility of […] statements about the world" (K&VL 1996: 160).

Different social groups that determine modality
· technological,
· sensory,
· abstract,
· and naturalistic

Iedema has identified four coding orientations of the moving image:
· the Real,
· the Really Real,
· the Real-as-Sensation,
· and the "Symbolizing the Real".
textual or compositional metafunction
· Salience “degree to which the element draws attention to itself" (K&VL 1996: 225)
· Temporal
· Spatial

Semiotic systems can be studied at different levels of specificity,
different levels of schematicity:

Langue1 is the most abstract level - Phonic and conceptual terms in the two orders of difference

Langue2 is the level of "sign types" - Sign types; typical lexicogrammatical forms and patterns (morpheme to sentence)

Langue3 is the level of the typical uses of the forms according to the text type

Metz

According to Metz, there is no one cinematographic "code", but a multitude of cinematographic codes. Each of these codes has its own minimal unit:

Segmental units are units which "occupy a continuous segment of filmic space and time" (Metz 1971: 151; my translation
Suprasegmental units are more abstract, being not present in the "textual surface".

Eco

Three articulations in film (kinesic, iconic signs, iconic figures)
Two articulations in verbal language

Groupe m

Minimal units on visual perception and cognition

Groupe µ identifies three basic terms involved in the constitution of iconic signs
Signifiers and referents (see figure 6). Types are mental representations of visual precepts


Groupe µ's division of the semiotic field into iconic and plastic signs

Meaning is realized simultaneously on three different levels: the referential, the interpersonal, and the compositional level

Phonemic features
Contrast is established by realising a distinction between the feature and its absence, Different positions, making each position into a different feature

Exaggeration of both similarities and differences in the image.
It exaggerates the difference between figure and ground and it emphasises the similarities constituting the figure.

Mobility between entities and sub-entities
What is an entity in one image can be a sub-entity in another.

Representational processes
These can be discreted on the syntagmatic and paradigmatic level through features like movement, duration of movement.

Interpersonal and compositional levels
The contrasting systems are gradational systems: contrast is established by making a distinction between degrees of a feature

Visual parameters
The contrasting system is again a gradational system. ‘Relative contrast may be less relative in some cases than in others, and absolute contrast is not as absolute as is sometimes maintained. As regards the former, the feature of /brightness/, for example, is a gradational feature’ De Grauwe

Viewer/listener has to go through certain discretion and abstraction processes to establish discrete units.

Referential abstraction.
In the filmic image, the concretisation is established not only by the context of situation and the textual context but also by the instance itself, its concrete expression

Abstraction of a concrete is given

Through selection of its pertinent features so that a type is established
Through its analysis into several types rather than one

This is a result of the arbitrariness of verbal language. Arbitrariness induces a distance from reality

A certain level of abstraction is necessary to understand the filmic image: without it, there could be no recognition of concrete instances.

Lighting and focus can also enhance abstraction of represented participants as well as of the setting in general.

Limited number of meanings realised by absolute contrast it offers a large number of possible meanings realised by relative contrast.

Iconicity, arbitrariness and economy

Iconicity
This is linked to systems of relative contrast on the basis of gradational scales. It also entails an increased difficulty to manipulate reality when compared to arbitrariness, pro-filmic reality, abstraction of represented participants, changes in colour, form or texture, etc

Arbitrariness
This brings about a distancing of reality, so that manipulation of reality becomes possible.
The greatest distance from reality

Economy
Results in arbitrariness. There is no paradigmatic economy as regards the inventory of represented participants. However, paradigmatic economy is also concerned with the limitation of grammatical gradational scales

Syntagmatic level

Temporal syntagmatic economy - Rather than being a grammatical limiting device, increase or decrease of temporal complexity has become linked to text-types

Spatial syntagmatic economy - the reduction of represented participants through abstracting devices, and the reduction of information through the limitation of depth of field

Conclusion

Comic narrative is a more non-linear form of narrative and is concerned with the use of frames, how hey are depicted as a whole, what they represent and how they relate to each other. Film is a linear kind of narrative that uses abstractness and discreteness, iconicity, economy and arbitrariness to express the subjects and events. This is through different camera positions, lighting, editing, ect to depict a perspective of the subject, events and story. Comic’s verbal form is text, which is expressed in a visual manner while film uses audio, which is expressed through tone and diction. Despite this, both comics and film express their subjects, stories and events through the selection by the producer or creator of what to reveal to the viewer but in their own distinct manners.

Differences in Timing Concerning the Weight of a Bouncing Ball

Factors that effect how a ball bounces are temperature, internal air pressure, air resistance, the surface that it contacts, rigidity, speed and weight. When attempting to simulate a bouncing ball through animation, one should consider these factors. The following focuses on how the weight of a ball effects its timing during it’s bounce. What other applications can be used from this exercise when doing more complex animation will also be discussed.

The weight of a ball will determine how high and how many times a ball bounces. To set the places in time, where and when the ball will bounce, one must position it accordingly and set keys in the timeline. First one should move the ball to the position where it's falling from and press the 'k' button to set the first key on the timeline. Next, one should move forward in time by moving the bar in the timeline and then move the ball halfway towards where it will contact the ground. The next key should where and when it makes contact with the ground.

Each bounce that follows will be less and less. The first bounce will be animated by keying the ball in the time where it should be at its highest. The end of it should be keyed where it contacts the floor. The following bounces should be created the same way except smaller than it's previous bounce. This is because each bounce that follows will be less and less. Where and when the ball has finished bouncing a key should be set at the end of it's bounce and a key to where and when it will stop. A ball would not stop dead so to make it more convincing and believable a key should be set slightly backwards, forwards again, and back to emulate the ball setting. This settling should be a movement through a minute space and should take a long time therefore the keys should be far apart on the time line.

Now one has a basic bounce but it won't be convincing. This is because a ball would accelerate as it falls and decelerate as it rises. This is called 'slow in' and 'slow out' in animation. One can control these aspects of the animation by opening the 'Animation Editor' by pressing '0'. This shows a graph with 'tangents' that are the curved lines and 'Bezier handles' which are the handles that allow one to control the bends of these lines. Currently the ball appears to move in a wave instead of having sharp bounces. To resolve this one can break the tangents by selecting the keys on the 'y' tangent where the ball makes contact with the ground and selecting the 'Mirror Slope Orientation’ button. Now the handles are broken into independent and symmetrical lines that allow one to sharpen the balls bounce from the tangents. The ball may not proceed at an even speed. To resolve this one should delete the unnecessary keys on the 'z' or 'x' tangent so that only the first and the last key are left. The Z tangent will move in one smooth motion because there will only be one curve that controls it.

The last problem is that the ball does not squash from the force when it makes contact with the ground. To simulate this in the animation a key should first be set just before and just after each bounce. This is so that the ball would only start to squash when it hits the ground instead of changing shape too early or too late. To simulate the actual squash, the pivot point of the object should be moved to the surface that its making contact with by selecting the object and holding the alt key and then scaling the ball horizontally. This will make the ball squash towards the surface instead of away from it. After scaling it, a key should be set and the same should be done at every bounce but it should be scaled less than the previous bounces.

There are other kinds of movements in animation that relate to the movement of a bouncing ball. The walking motion of a character is similar to this. A foot also moves to and from a surface much like the bounce of a ball. This is because it would make contact with the floor and separate sharply just like the bounce of the ball. The general movements of animated objects move through time and space and also include slow in and slow out movements that can be controlled with the animation editor.

References:
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0031-9120/33/3/018/pe8308.pdf?request-id=AICepCjl3BGk1_wf3Ai7Kg