Project 2: Self-Critique

I personally believe that I did pretty well with the animation. It came out mostly with what I intended and I am honestly pretty proud of it. Despite that, it is not perfect and has quite a number of flaws.

Firstly, I never touch the graph editor. This results in an animation which is somewhat not smooth at some parts. Secondly, the final animation is very different from the storyboard. This is due to to limitations I encounter in animating, such as the limit the crane can go, so there were a lot of changes. Thirdly, some parts of the animation is either too draggy (e.g. when the crane is observing the red box) or too fast (e.g. when the crane began shaking the box near the end.) Lastly, I had to remove the Orient Constrain to properly animate the magnet head so this results in awkward movements whenever it lifts/lowers a box, though this is not entirely obvious.

Regardless, the animation turns out alright to me and I was able to include quite a number of animating principles. The first green box had a squash and stretch when it sped up and collide with the magnet head. The constant fidgeting of the crane when it is idle counts as follow through and overlapping action or secondary action. There are also a bit of anticipation, such as the crane pulling its magnet head backwards and pausing there before shoving the red box. Much of the crane's animation also follows an arc. Quite a bit of exaggeration were put in, such as the green box's squash and stretch. I also believe that the crane has some amount of appeal.

Well, that's my self-critique.

Project 2: Research

I haven't been able to find much results but I did manage to come across several tips which helps me quicken the speed in which I do my animations.

One tutorial in particular suggests to its readers to keyframe the "start point" and "end point" of an animation. This means that, for example, a ball is supposed to bounce from Point A and Point B, keyframe its starting position and its final position. Once that is done, I can then add in other details in between, such as squash and stretch or bouncing keyframes, with a degree of accuracy better than putting in each keyframe one by one. It also helps in situation where you want one of the model's translate values to be the same at the start and end of the animation but will change in between.

Another tutorial suggests to its readers to avoid making their animations appear stiff, unless the animation involve non-emotional or non-sentient beings. This is to add in some life into the animation and avoid making it appear boring and fake. This is done by making the model fidget or shake in instances where it isn't supposed to move. This can be applied into my robot arm animation; when the arm is supposed to remain still, such as when the magnet is observing the red box, I will make the arm move slightly. Despite being a non-emotional robot, the robot arm is meant to be sentient.

Both tutorials can be combined for effective use. This can be done in one way: When the robot arm is supposed to remain still, I will keyframe the start and end frame of its idleness and add in slight fidget animations in between. This has helped made my robot arm appear more alive and human-like.

Project 2: Storyboard (Assuming 25 fps)

Lefty will start in a pose which implies that it is deactivated or asleep. This is done by making it appear slump or limp. (1 whole second --> 25 frames)

Lefty will briefly shake. After that, Lefty will slowly raise itself to show that it has awaken. (About 5 frames shake. About 20 frames raise)

Lefty's magnet will angle towards the first box, almost as if it was looking at it. (About 15+ frames)

Lefty will then attach itself to the box. (About 20+ frames)

Lefty will raise the box. (20+ frames)

Back View

Lefty will turn about 90 degrees with the box still attached. (20 frames)

Lefty then lowers the box onto a platform. (20+ frames)

Side View

Lefty returns back to its initial position while another box reels in. (20 frames)

The process will be repeated about 1 - 2 times. (100 - 200 frames)

A red box is reeled in and Lefty react with shock. (10+ frame reel in. Another 10 frame shock)

Lefty bent down to have a good look at the red box. (25+ frames)

Lefty stared at it with seeming awe. (About 25+ frames stare)

Lefty observe the box for a while, looking around it. (60 frames)

Lefty look up to compare it with another box behind it. (30 frames)

Lefty moved closed to the red box and "smelled" it. (25+ frames)

Lefty shove the red box lightly to check its weight and material. (80 frames)

Lefty look up again, making a second comparison. (30 frames)

Lefty hits the red box several times to check its hardness. (10+ frames per hit. About 3 hits)

Lefty attached itself to the red box. (20 frames)

Lefty lifts it. (10 frames)

Lefty shakes it frantically. (40 frames)

Lefty ceased its shaking. (10 frames)

Lefty nodded with the red box still attached. It conclude that it is to be stacked with the rest. (40 frames)

Upon stacking, Lefty moved on to the next box. (60 frames)

Project 2: Character

Name: Lefty

The robot arm will be called Lefty in reference to the fact that it is unusually intelligent and human-like for a robot.

Throughout its work, Lefty will be thinking about its assigned job, along with the idea that all boxes that he needs to lift will be green in color. He is, for the most part, focused and on task, although he occasionally wonders about trivial things, such as why the boxes are squarish and why he is doing all this, inciting learning capability. At times, he even counts the number of boxes he has lifted so far and also begin to count the time it takes for him to lift and drop each boxes. This is to display a certain amount of boredom. Regardless, these thoughts are not shown physically.

Week 13 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 is shown as being older by its slow movements and curiosity over the ball, displayed by it look at the ball for a while before interacting with it. Unlike the small lamp, the big lamp simply looked at the small lamp playing with the ball, apparently watching over the small lamp and only playing with it when the ball comes to it. Even then, it does it with lesser enthusiasm and does not shake erratically. The big lamp also shake its head when the small lamp plays with the big ball, probably an alternative to a sigh as the big lamp may be tired entertaining the more active small lamp.

The small lamp is shown as being younger by its tendency to jump and its rather quick movements, implying youth. Its different parts sometimes move independently, like its base, and unlike the big lamp, who stays in place, the small lamps moves around and jumps a lot. It also poses more joints which allows it to move more frantically. When the ball bursts, the small lamp turn to the big lamp, seemingly trying to see the big lamp's reaction, an action typical with children when they break stuff.

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 timing of the small lamps sudden stop in movement after its consistent jump on the ball gives the illusion that something just happened and the slowness of the ball's squash motion makes it appear funny. The big lamp's quick, though startled, reaction before the appearance of the balls also gives anticipation and adds humor at its reaction to the ball's appearance.

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.

Selecting the first joint affects the rest of the joints while selecting the last joint only affects itself. Hence, it is necessary to place joints in the proper place.

Week 12 Exercise 2

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

Personally, I don't think you need to able to draw well to create good 2D animation. Some very good 2D animations comes with very simple drawings, often in the form of stick-men or dots. Good drawing only adds to the appeal and does not guarantee a good 2D animation. Also, focusing too much on drawing well could lead to neglecting good animation.

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

As with the above, I still do not believe that you need to draw well to create good 3D animation. It is not the design that matters for 3D; rather the key-framing, the outlining and the rigging of the model is what is more important. Simple design makes it easier to animate and this usually leads to good 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?

 I think the one thing that separates poor and good animation is whether or not the movement is believable should a similar situation happen in real life, unless the animation is meant to be cartoonic. If it is supposed to be cartoonic, I think it is the smoothness of the animation that will determine its quality.

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.

 No. Technically, both of them are similar as it revolves around the timing of the animation. The only main difference I see is that 3D requires the user to pay some attention on the model's surrounding while 2D model only have one view to worry about. 3D animation is also more varied and flexible.

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 does well in allowing a large number of options for modelers to create models and animators to create good animations. The options seems almost endless and there are so many of them, I think it will take a very long time to learn and understand them. However, it can be laggy and not really user-friendly, especially for new users as a lot of jargons are used. Regardless, tutorials can help and overall, the tool is very good.

Week 11 Lab 2

1) Why is squash and stretch so useful in animation?

It makes objects appear real rather than static or stiff. In addition, squash and stretch actually happens in real life, albeit not being so obvious.

2) Think of a situation in which extreme squash and stretch could be applied to a character - try to be original.

In a cartoon world, a character may be pelted with objects dropping on his head thrown by another unhappy character. It begins with small objects and lesser squash and stretch before bigger objects comes down and hence, more squash and stretch. This applies to the character and the falling objects. Rather than falling down onto the ground, the character remains still, allowing the squash and stretch to appear obvious, and exaggerated.

3) Think of an animation example where squash and stretch would NOT be appropriate

When a crane or a character gently places an object onto the ground regardless of hardness.

4) If squash and stretch doesn't really happen so obviously in real life, why do you think is it so effective in animation?
(Look at the title of Disney animator Ollie Johnston's famous book about animation - do an Amazon search ... there's a clue in the title!)

It gives the animation and the object the image of it being real or alive, or the illusion of life in its movements.