Help me animate bubbles when an object falls into water

Answer Dan replies

As an object falls into the water it drags a chunk of air down with it. This air will be grouped underneath the object. At this stage you can have a lot of fun designing an interestinglooking bubble without worrying too much about physics. It’s as soon as you start moving these bubbles that your own understanding of the physical world comes into play. This may seem complicated, but my animation tutor once told me that animation is lots of simple things happening at once, and underwater bubbles are no exception.

The first thing to note is that bubbles will accelerate towards the surface, taking a curving path to get there. The shapes of the bubbles start off more stretched and extreme. They then become more circular and uniform as the animation goes on. You can animate some bubbles stretching apart and then break them into a few smaller ones. With others, randomly split them into smaller bubbles as they travel upwards. It’s then a case of animating the smaller bubbles until they’re dispersed.

Big shapes quickly become small shapes as the bubbles dance to the surface. Variations in size, shape and speed will enhance any effects in animation work.

Rough out the major shapes, then employ the straightahead animation approach to depict the smaller dispersal bubbles. This will maintain their spontaneous nature.