Tutorials

How to Create a Short Animation in Blender

Hadouin •
#blender#3d#animation

Blender is a free and open-source 3D creation suite that can do everything from modeling to animation to video editing. In this post, I’ll walk you through creating a simple short animation from scratch.

Setting up the scene

When you open Blender, you get the default cube. For once, we’re going to keep it. Delete the default light and camera first, we’ll set those up properly later.

  1. Select the cube and press S to scale it down along the Z axis (S > Z > 0.2) to make it look like a platform
  2. Add a UV Sphere (Shift+A > Mesh > UV Sphere) and place it above the platform
  3. Add a light (Shift+A > Light > Area) and position it above and to the side of the scene
  4. Add a camera (Shift+A > Camera) and use Ctrl+Alt+Numpad 0 to snap it to your current viewport

Adding materials

Select the platform, go to the Material Properties tab and create a new material. Set the base color to a dark gray. Do the same for the sphere but give it a bright color like orange or blue.

For better results, switch to the Eevee render engine and enable Screen Space Reflections in the render settings.

Keyframing the animation

This is where it gets fun. We’ll make the sphere bounce on the platform.

  1. Set your timeline to frame 1
  2. Select the sphere, press I and choose Location to insert a keyframe
  3. Move to frame 15, move the sphere down to touch the platform, and insert another keyframe
  4. Move to frame 30, move the sphere back up (not as high as the start), and keyframe again
  5. Repeat this pattern with decreasing height for a natural bounce effect

Adjusting the curves

Open the Graph Editor and select all keyframes. Change the interpolation to Bounce or manually adjust the bezier handles to get a smooth bouncing motion. The key is making the downward motion faster than the upward motion.

Adding a simple background

Instead of a plain gray background:

  1. Go to World Properties
  2. Set the surface to Background
  3. Use a subtle gradient by plugging a Gradient Texture through a Color Ramp node into the background color

Camera movement

A static camera is boring. Let’s add a subtle orbit:

  1. Select the camera
  2. Add a Track To constraint targeting the sphere
  3. Keyframe the camera’s position at frame 1
  4. At the last frame, move the camera slightly to the side and keyframe again

Rendering

Before rendering, configure your output:

  • Resolution: 1920x1080
  • Frame Rate: 30 fps
  • Output Format: FFmpeg Video with H.264 encoding
  • Output path: choose a folder for your rendered video

Set your end frame in the timeline to match your animation length, then hit Ctrl+F12 to render the animation. Depending on your hardware, this should take a few minutes for a short clip.

Tips for better results

  • Squash and stretch: Scale the sphere slightly on impact to sell the bounce effect
  • Motion blur: Enable it in the render settings for more cinematic movement
  • Sound: Add a bounce sound effect in Blender’s Video Sequence Editor for extra polish
  • Lighting: Experiment with a three-point lighting setup for more depth

That’s it! You now have a basic animation. From here you can experiment with more complex models, physics simulations, or even character animation. Blender’s documentation and the community on YouTube are incredible resources to keep learning.

← Back to Blog