Animating A Basic Bouncing Ball

The first step in animating a simple bouncing ball is to create a sphere and move it the desired height above the plane.

Next on the animation bar at the bottom you need to select the 1st frame and in the Channel Box/Layout Editor select both the Translator Y and Scale Y. Right click on the selected boxes and select Key Selected. This creates a small red box next to the name.

Next select the 15th frame and move the ball down to the bottom of the plane. Also scale down the Y axis to make it seem like it is being deformed when it is hitting the ground. Once again go into the Channel Box/Layout Editor and repeat the process with the Key Selected.

Select the 30th frame and rescale and move the ball back up the Y axis. Also once again repeat the Key Selected process.

However when you now play your animation it might seem very artificial and too soft for a falling bouncing ball. This can be changed in the Graph Editor found in Windows - Animation Editors.

Once you have this box open there will be a simple graph. To be able to edit this graph correctly you need to select the orange points at the curves and select the Break Tangent button found at the top of the editor.

Once you have broken the tangents you can now edit the curve. When you select the orange points a grey point will appear at either side. Move these points  so the graph no longer has curves but straight lines.

The bouncing ball should now be animated in a more realistic way.