Week 13

Exercise 3

Exercise 4

1)  Apart from their different sizes, it is obvious from Luxo Jr. that the big lamp is “older” and that the small lamp is “younger”.

How is this communicated by the animation? Give at least THREE examples.

Do NOT say because the small lamp is playing with a ball, or that its name is Luxo Jr. – you should be looking at the animation, how the lamps move and emote (emote means to express emotions).

The big lamp did not move as much as the small lamp, showing that the small lamp is more active and has more energy like a younger person has over an older person. The big lamp's movement when it hits the ball is slower compared to the small lamp and the small lamp is mischievous as it jumped on the ball and burst it while the big lamp just watch the small lamp play. The big lamp shakes its head when the small lamp got a bigger ball to play with, showing both lamps' maturity level.

2)  Give an example from Luxo Jr of how timing is used for comic effect. Explain how the timing decisions contribute to the humour.

     The small lamp wiggles its body before hopping, this shows the excitement and the lamp preparing to hop and the timing to put this wiggling of the body gives it a comic effect. The small lamp jumped on the ball and is rolling on it. When the ball deflates, the small lamp becomes rigid, then the ball deflates. The timing for that particular scene gives a sense of humor as the ball did not deflate while rolling but when the lamp stops rolling.

3) When you create a joint chain, these form a hierarchy, with the first joint at the top and the last joint at the bottom. Explain why this is necessary for the joints to work properly.

   If the joints do not work properly, the whole thing will look disoriented, unstable and unrealistic in a negative way.

Squash & Stretch

I created a sphere. Then, I grouped it twice. The first group is to handle rotation and the other group to handle translates. I create a deformer and parent it to the group that handle translates. Next, I lock the unused attributes for each group and the deformer.

I followed the table below.

Keyframe No.	Translate X	Translate Y
1	-12	5
12	-9	0.5 (ground)
25	-6.1	3.9
37	-3	0.5
50	-0.2	2.8
62	2.7	0.5
75	6	1.6
87	8.8	0.5
100	12	0.5

Next I open the graph editor and flattened the top tangents and broke the bottom tangents to make the curve steeper for a more realistic feel.

Next I set stretches 1 frame before the ball touches the ground, set squashes at the frame where the ball touches the ground and normalise the ball 2 frames after the ball touches the ground.

Lastly, I set the keyframe at frame 0 for 0 rotation and then another at frame 100 for -1200 Z-rotation.

I learned to use the deformer to squash and stretch the ball by changing the factor value. I learned to lock attributes to narrow down the points i am required to edit to make animating the ball a much easier task. Creating different groups can be used to edit a certain factor of the object which is certainly a method to make animation easier than having all the factors lumping into one.

Week 12

1)  Do you need to be able to draw well to create good 2D animation? Explain your view.

    In my viewpoint, a certain standard of drawing will create good 2D animation. However, the main point of a good 2D animation is the proper application of the 12 animation principles.

2) Do you need to be able to draw well to create good 3D animation? Explain your view.

    As the previous question, a certain standard of drawing will impact but the proper use of animation principles is still the most important factor to create a good 2D/3D animation.

3) What do you think would separate a piece of poor animation from a piece of good animation? In other words, how would you go about deciding if a piece of animation is good or bad?

    If the animation principles are not used correctly, the animation will turn out bad. Proper use of the animation principles will separate a good piece of animation from a bad one.

4) In 2D animation, you need to be very aware of timing at a frame by frame level, using timing charts and other techniques - but for 3D animation, this is handled using the graph editor, which is more concerned with manipulating rates of change over time.

Does this affect how you approach your animation work? Explain.

It makes the job of making the animation smooth and having the wanted outcome much more easier that needing to do it at a frame by frame level, which is tougher.

5) Give a brief critique of Maya as an animation tool. Don't just say Maya makes animation difficult, or easy, or that you need to learn a lot of stuff to use Maya - explain what Maya does well and not so well in terms of creating animation.

   Maya is not user friendly for beginners as the interface is complex and requires a lot of time spent on interacting with it to be familiar with it. However, the tools Maya provides makes animation easier to cope. Tools like snapping and shortcut keys makes certain things easier to handle.

Keyframes and the Graph Editor

Exercise 1

First, I select the ball and set keyframe at frame 1

I shifted the ball to the other end and set keyframe at frame 72

I clicked frame 33, shifted the ball just above the fence and set keyframe at that frame

I clicked frame 50, shifted the ball to sit on the ground and set keyframe at that frame

I clicked frame 60, shifted the ball up to less than half the height of the ball at frame 33 and set keyframe at that frame

I clicked animation preferences and set max playback speed to 24 frames per second

I used the graph editor to make the bounce more lifelike 

I used playblast to record the animation and saved it as a movie file

Exercise 2

Relying on what I have learned in lab 1, I made an animation of a ball bouncing without squash and stretch.

This is my graph for the bouncing ball animation above

I learned about keyframing, pressing s to set keyframe, right click at frame to copy/delete frame and usage of graph editor to enhance my animation by moving the tangents at the points. I also learned about 24 fps being applicable to our country. I also learn to apply animation principle of arc as gravity cause the ball to bounce in the path of an arc and not a straight line.

Animation Principles

Squash and Stretch

In the video, as the ball bounces up and down, the ball squashes when it hits the ground and stretches when it bounces off the ground.

Anticipation

In the video, anticipation is seen when the girl swing her arm backwards before swinging it forward to punch the guy.

Staging
In the video, staging is seen when the girl runs towards the camera as the audience's attention is directed to the girl.

Straight ahead and pose to pose animation
In the video, the guy doing secret agent scene shows bits of straight ahead and pose to pose animation as some parts of that scene is straight ahead animation like running and rolling and pose to pose animation like smelling the shoe and picking up the object.

Follow through and overlapping action
When the girl run and jump, her hair and the bag she is carrying shows follow through and overlapping action.

Slow-out and Slow-in
As the pass is passed between the two guys, the ball slows down and quickens mid-air. This shows slow-out and slow-in.

Arcs
When the ball travels in the air, the path it travels is in the shape of an arc.

Secondary Action
When the girl is running, her arms swinging is showing secondary action.

Timing
As the ball bounce, the timing  between the bounces of the ball is shorter. This shows timing.

Exaggeration
When the guy is doing the secret agent scene, his rolling shows exaggeration as running or crawling is normal but he wanted to express the feel through exaggeration.

Solid Drawing
The ball bouncing shows volume and weight as it bounces with impact.


Appeal
The guy doing the secret agent scene shows appeal as he puts in humor when he overreacted after smelling the shoe and when he roll about unnecessary.

Staging
The first few seconds of the clip shows the two main characters and the audience knows that they will fight each other.


Follow through and overlapping action
As the girl with ponytail turns around, her hair flows along with her head

Slow-out and Slow-in
When the three beasts with four legs jump towards the boy, there is slow-in to invoke a feeling of intensity at a critical moment.

Secondary Action
When the two guys looked at each other, the guy with the long white hair gave a smirk.

Anticipation
When the guy with the big sword crouch to leap towards his enemy.

Straight ahead and pose to pose animation
There is straight ahead when the two main guys are fighting each other and pose to pose when their eyes meet when their swords clashed.

Appeal
The guys with long white hair gives off a confident and proud character while the guy with short hair gives off a serious character which appeals to people.