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.