So, I got this idea stuck in my head the other day, this “basketball loop” thing. Sounded pretty straightforward, right? Just get a ball to go through a hoop, again and again. I thought, “Yeah, piece of cake, I’ll get this done in like, an hour, tops.” Boy, was I wrong.
Getting Started (or so I thought)
I fired up my computer, thinking I’d just use some basic JavaScript and the HTML canvas. Nothing fancy. My plan was simple: draw a hoop, draw a ball, make the ball move. How tough could that really be? I’ve seen a million little animations like this.
First, I drew the hoop. That part was okay, just a couple of shapes. Then the ball. Also fine. The trouble started when I tried to make that darn ball actually move like a basketball. My first attempts? The ball either shot straight up like a rocket or dropped like a stone. There was no nice arc, no swish, nothing. It was just… sad.
The Never-Ending Tweaks
Let me tell you, getting that arc to look even remotely believable was a nightmare. I must have fiddled with the gravity numbers, the initial speed, the angles, for what felt like forever. I’d change a number, run it, watch the ball do something ridiculous, and then go back to the drawing board. It was maddening. Sometimes it would hit the rim and just… stop. Dead. Like it was mocking me. Or it’d bounce off at some crazy angle and fly off the screen entirely.
I remember at one point, I actually grabbed a piece of paper and tried to sketch out the trajectory. Me, sketching physics! It felt like I was back in high school, and not in a good way. My desk ended up covered in these weird, scribbled arc attempts. My wife even asked if I was okay because I was muttering to myself about “ball physics.”
And then, making it loop smoothly? Oh man. That was a whole other can of worms. Getting it to reset perfectly so it looked continuous, instead of that jerky jump you sometimes see? That took way more brainpower than I wanted to admit for such a “simple” project. It was like trying to get a toddler to follow instructions – pure chaos most of the time.
Finally, Something… Kinda Loop-ish
After a lot of hair-pulling, I eventually got something that… well, it looped. The ball went up, it came down, it went through the hoop (most of the time), and it started over. It’s not exactly NBA Jam graphics, you know? It’s pretty janky, if I’m being honest. Sometimes it still has a weird little stutter. But hey, it’s a basketball, and it’s looping. Mostly.
You know, it’s funny. I started this whole “basketball loop” thing thinking it’d be a quick win. A little distraction. But it turned into this mini-obsession. It wasn’t really about making the world’s best basketball animation. It was more about that stubborn part of me that just couldn’t let it go. That feeling of, “I started this, I’m gonna make it work, darn it!”
It reminds me of when I tried to fix that leaky faucet myself. Watched a bunch of videos, thought, “I got this.” Three hours later, the bathroom was half-flooded, and I was calling a plumber anyway. Some things just fight you every step of the way.
What I Reckon Now
So, the loop isn’t perfect. Far from it. But I did get it to loop. And I suppose that’s the takeaway, isn’t it? Sometimes it’s not about the polished, perfect end product. It’s about the process, the fiddling, the figuring stuff out. It’s like practicing free throws. You don’t make every single one, especially not at first. You just keep shooting, keep trying, keep going through that motion, that loop. You learn a bit more with every miss, and every now and then, you get that satisfying swish. And that’s good enough for me, for now. Maybe I’ll go back and make it smoother one day. Or maybe I’ll just let it be my perfectly imperfect basketball loop.