Week 13: Mech Arm

ARRRGGHHH!!!! Apparently the school computer had a virus in it that transferred into my thumb drive and when I went home, my anti-virus detected the virus and deleted all the file that contained the virus. Which was practically EVERYTHING.

Luckily, I had backups stored on my laptop for all my files....HOWEVER... the screenshot of the process of making the animation were lost zzz.

Anyway, this week lab was the animation of the crane. The final outcome was to pick up the box and move it to the platform. I found this lesson to be a huge step forward as we learnt how to use skeletons and constraints. These skills are the stepping stones to creating a realistic or at least a human animation model.

There were a few problems when I was doing this exercise. I did not know how to use the Constrain -> Set to Rest Position function and my box teleported around when i used the constraints. Another problem i encountered was that I thought that we had to parent the cargo box to the arm control for it to move but apparently a constraint was needed. It took me awhile to complete this exercise and i had to ask around for some help regarding the problems. Eventually though, I completed it and I have a good feeling of the assignment ^_^

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

Yes, I do believe that we need to be able to draw well to create a good 2D animation. I find that we need to be able to draw the frames to be as smooth as possible compared to the previous frames

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

On the other hand, I do not thing that drawing affects 3D animation THAT much. You still need to know how objects and living thing move and react to other objects and that affects how you animate 3D. However, you do not need to draw in 3D (or at least not now) and hence a lesser importance of it compared to 2D.

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?

I would see the distance in each frames and how realistic they look like.

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.

Personally, I find the graph editor to be of better use as it is more "clear". Editing on the graph editor is much easier than frame by frame checking.

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

It would make working on animation much easier and precise.

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.

I do not know how to answer this question as I have not used any other 3D animation platform and cannot compare. I am personally fine with using Maya now ^^

Week 12: 3 Balls Bounce

This video shows my work for the three bouncing balls. The grey ball is a regular basketball, the orange ball is a ping pong ball and the shiny metal ball is a .......... shiny metal ball!

This animation was particularly hard and I don't know why! I think it was probably the weight and the timing of each ball that makes it difficult. I guess this was a good workout exercise =p

Week 11: Squash and Stretch

First i created the ball and the squash handle. Then i dragged both of them under the translate_ball_gp.

I then locked all the other values which will not be used for safety pre-cautions. These is done to all objects in the group.

The Factor of the squash_handle affects how the ball is squashed or stretched. A positive value stretches the ball while a negative value squashes it.

Set the Frame Per Second to Real-time[25fps] .....

Adjust how to ball hits the ground and bounces up at the Graph editor and after other changes....

VOILA!!!

Another great exercise to improve our animation skills. This exercise is an essential part in animation as it teaches us how to create one of the most important principle of animation. Of course this alone it not alot compared to the industry but still... alot learnt from this exercise ^^

Week 11: Animation 3D

How to use maya to animate was taught in class. Keyframes have to be placed and Maya does the moving. Before starting, it is necessary to change the Frames Per Second (FPS) to Real-Time(25fps) or the animation will play at 100fps by default. The graph editor was also taught in class but not into much depth until the next exercise. This is the first step for all students doing 3D animation! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Week 10: 2D animation (Pencil)

Both of these videos shows the lesson on basic keyframes in an animation. They are not refined that much to show the placing of each keyframe (And also i lost my refined ones in class :'( ). Both animations have forces moving them. The ball is bounced by gravity and the seaweed is moved by waves. This exercise shows us how to do an animation with foreign factors working on it. Another MUST LEARN in Animation ^^.

Week10: Animation Visualisation

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  Squash and stretch: Squash and stretch can be seen when their bodies straighten up when jumping.

Anticipation: Anticipation is seen when they squat down.

Staging: No clear if there is a staging in the video.

Straight ahead and pose to pose: This is a live-action video and not a animation and hence I do not think this principle can be implemented.

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• Follow through and overlapping action: Follow through and overlapping action of the hoodie string worn by one of them.
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• Slow in and slow out + Timing: When launching themselves into the air, the Slow in and Slow out and Timing principles are executed, showing the weight and acceleration of their movements.
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• Arcs: No arc is displayed.
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• Secondary Action: While in the jump, the Secondary Action of their facial expressions can be seen
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• Exaggeration: None displayed:
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• Solid drawing: Not sure this applys to real-life videos but I would say not.
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• Appeal: The two of them! haha

• Exercise 3
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• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9z36WDj2PcU (Halo 3 trailer)
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• Staging - Shots and bullets fly through the sky showing that the character is in a war zone.
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• Anticipation- In the video, the character seems to be looking for something until the camera shows the helmet. This shows anticipation of picking up the helmet.
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• Follow through and overlapping action - When the character tries to get up and places his hand on the ground for support, his head nods downwards which gives the feel of him trying to hold himself up.

• Exaggeration - Explosion of AWESOME proportions
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Appeal - Nice graphics for the bubble shield for appeal

Slow in and slow out - Starting from a stand still, he starts running and accelerates quickly.

• If you watch the entire video, other principles of animation like Secondary actions and Solid drawing are made very prominent throughout the video. This exercise is a very important exercise for all students learning animation and they are the fundamentals for making animation. I hope to learn more about it throughout the course and hopefully produce an EPIC animation!! =)))