SELF CRITIQUE

I am satisfied with my overall work. However i do feel that there is room for a lot of improvements. For example, i had a lot of problems in the beginning with my parenting, but with some help from friends, i managed to solve that problem.

I did manage to do the squash and stretch for the ball. But, when my ball had to enter the scene for the second time, i wanted it to bounce in, and i could not do it because i had problems with my squash and stretch. Therefore i made it roll in instead.

There was an exaggeration of the robot's shocked expression when it saw it's friend, the ball.

Overall i did enjoy doing this assignment. And i managed to learn alot more while doing my assignment.

WEEK 11: LAB 2

SQUASH AND STRETCH

REFLECTION...

i did have certain minor problems while making the video, as the pivot was not at the centre. However, after that i had fun doing the squash and stretch.

WEEK 12:EXERCISE 2

From your (still very) basic experience with 2D and 3D animation, discuss the following questions on your weblog.

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

Yes, this is mainly because 2D drawing depend mostly on the image, which in this case, has to be hand drawn. 

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

  We do not really need to be able to draw to create a good 3D animation. This is because in 3D animation, the object that is animated depends mainly on your understanding of the object, and it relies on your imagination.

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?

The timing has to be perfect. For example, the exercise with the crane and the boxes, if the crane's position is already at the position where it is supposed to pick up the box, and the box is not there yet, then it would seem like the crane is picking up nothing.

Also, the movements must be exaggerated to show the viewers what is really happening. For example, if the crane picks up the box quickly and puts it down quickly within a period of maybe 2 seconds, the viewers would not be able to see the whole animation.

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.

The graph is more important in manipulating the rates of change over time. This is because, in the graph you can easily fine-tune each detail, like the angle of the bounce, and time. 

This does affect my animation work, and it allows me to perfect my work, as i can adjust each an every point on the graph. Therefore, before i playblast my video, i can check the graph, to ensure that there aren't any stray points. 

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 a programme that allows users to model their own objects, and also animate it afterwards. Maya does make animation easier as it has some basic features that allows users who are still new to the programme to be able to learn easily and use it. 

However, there are several extra features, that need alot of work to complete. For example for the crane and the box,  I had to create parent, constrain, skeleton and do alot of other work. I found it very time constraining, and complicated.

WEEK 13: (QUESTION 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.

 1) I can see that the smaller lamp is more enthusiastic, because it was "hopping around alot", whereas the bigger lamp was not moving around much.

2) The smaller lamp had alot of quick movements, like when it was hitting the ball, and then bouncing on the ball.

3) The larger lamp seemed to be doing things slowly. And, it didnt really seem attracted to the ball as much as the little ball was attracted.

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

 i found the part where the ball deflated, funny. During this period of time the person who created this video, sped up the timing and made us all excited. After a while, the ball becomes still of a fraction of a second, and then starts to slowly deflating. The part where the ball becomes stiff makes us all get a shock, because after that, it slowly deflates. This adds humous because we didnt realise that the ball was going to deflate.

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.

This is basically because, if one of the joints do not work, then the whole things wouldnt work. for example, the bottom part of something might move, however the top might just remain at the same position. This would make animation more difficult, as te animator would have to animate every part of their object individually.

WEEK 13: (RIGGING)

CREATING A SKELETON

PARENTING MODEL TO SKELETON

Selecting swivel base

Constraining an IK system

ORIENT CONSTRAIN

LIMITING THE RANGE OF CONTROL

after adding colour

REFLECTION...

I did find this exercise really challenging and long. I did have certain problems with my rigging such as the skeleton. However, i did manage to make my crane move as desired.

PROJECT 2: Character & Storyboard (Scenario 3)

1: Character
My robot is called hubba-hubba. He has been working in the company for 3 years, and he definitely doesnt like his job. He has been forced to work there because he couldnt find any other job, and he has to provide for his family. Everyday he dreaded going to work, and he does his work without liking it a single bit. He usually goes home after work with his friend Baller. But today, Baller decides to fool around with Hubba-Hubba, and Hubba-Hubba isnt happy about it at all.


2: Storyboard

frame 1: Stacking boxes
frame 2: Sees ball
frame 3: Gets angry, and shakes "head"
frame 4: Hits ball. Ball rolls away
frame 5: Continues stacking
frame 6: Lifts up "head" because it is shocked. Ball happily bounces continuously.