Summer of Math Exposition

World in Motion: How to animate the beautiful game

In a Summer full of wonderful sporting moments, we wanted to recreate our favourite: the goal that won the FA Cup! Feeling a little nostalgic, we thought it would be fun if our virtual Soccer highlights took on the appearance of a retro video game. To our surprise, a simple application of High School mathematics provided a short-cut. Here, we outline an approach that can easily be adapted to animating highlights from the NFL, NHL, MLB, NBA, and many other sports besides. And if you're not a big Sports fan, we hope you'll enjoy dreaming up new ways to apply a powerful animation technique!