Research 10

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHnRT9h-xBE&feature=relmfu

This tutorial I found is not really a proper tutorial but seeing that it is Maya and it has helped, I feel that I should share this.

Basically, this video shows us how to change the hotkey for each function. This was extremely useful to me as initially, I was constantly pressing R, only to get the rescale tool when in reality, I wanted the rotate tool. After finding this, I swapped the rescale and rotate hotkeys and now, with the rotate tool being on R, work is much easier for me as I do not unintentionally rescale my work like before.

Research 9 + extra work

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auoKll2OMpM&feature=related

Light! This in my opinion is what makes models look more life-like. Although it was a very short tutorial, it was effective enough to tell me that directional light creates light in a certain direction which causes objects to cast a shadow accordingly. Having seen this, I gave it a try on Maya and this was what I managed to do.

Also, another good find was that by press T, I could have two areas of movement, the light and the point of aim.

Research 8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYG11YpKuc0

Initially, I had no clue that text could be created on maya. I had an assignment in other subjects that required me to model a product.

And due to this lack of information, the product's name had to be typed outside of the created model. It is only recently did I come across this video that taught me that text could be written on Maya. Not only that, but these text could be textured as well which was another plus side to it. It was a good find but I hoped that I had found it sooner so that I could have done my product modeling better.

Research 7 + Extra work

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58eR00N4Q3c

While searching youtube for ways to move the camera, I came across this video and I was surprised that this was possible. He simply parent a circle and a camera and he could spin the camera. I had to immediately try this out and this was what I did.

It is nothing fancy but here I learnt a little more about the tricks of parenting. Unfortunately, I was unable to use this new technique for my assignment but nonetheless it was a great find and I am sure that it will come in handy in future.

Research 6

Before, I have already found a video that showed me that I could set key frames to position the camera at certain times but through this video,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q46kEUt_PUs

it made me come up with my idea of changing the camera position various times within a small period of time to create that "shaking" effect.

I am unsure if it was my lack of memory but I feel that thanks to this video, I was to come up with that idea and use it in my animation and I feel that I should share it.

Assignment 2 Part 2

Introduction

For my assignment, I did scenario four. I continued on from my week 13 work and eventually came up with this piece of work. Basically, seeing that it was a robot arm, I kept the starting really robotic and in a way, "not natural" as I wanted to really portray the arm as a robot. It is only when a problem is faced did I want the movements to be more natural, as if the robot pretends to be a robot when doing its usual task.

Process

As mentioned before, I continued from where I left off in week 13. Having said so, from there on, i added three more boxes as seen at point 1, as well as another box which will actually be hidden, which will appear mid-way through the animation, as seen at point 2. The reason i did not put the box along the same Translate X axis as the first lifted box is because I wanted it to appear mid-way through and if i aligned it, the box would appear from a very far distance which was inappropriate for this context.

Also, I set the resolution of my camera to 640 x 320 as instructed by my teacher. To add on, I zoomed in quite a bit so that the box's movements is hidden a little at the start of the animation. By doing this, I feel that I have created a sense of anticipation as the audience would only see the robot arm moving but, because the box is not seen at that point in time, they will be curious of what will happen thus, anticipate for the action that will follow up.

This is the view when the camera has zoomed out. From this, it sets the stage for the audience, allow them to understand the situation as well as what is going to happen.

Also, as mentioned above, the other box is able to enter the scene normally unlike if it were aligned with the Translate X of the first box for, if it were aligned, the box would have already been seen when the camera first zooms out.

After that, the steps were quite straight-forward. First, I set various key frames to give the animation its key poses.

The cargo arm

The box

As for the camera, where I also set frames to give it that zooming out effect, I had areas where the camera would shake to exaggerate the situation of that time, to give audience's a greater sense of the atmosphere and in a way, make it more appealing. To do this, I set numerous key frames, moving the camera in a random direction each time, as seen below.

After setting all the key frames, I then proceed to trying to make the animation more natural. For the starting, I did not change anything as I wanted to keep that robotic feel to make it seem like the robot is only pretending to be robotic when it can actually move normally later on. For the following frames after the first 180, I edited the graph editor by smoothing out certain areas as well as defining other ones.

Here I added a frame(red curve) and tweaked it till it had a nicer curve so as to give the cargo-box and ease-in effect. I did not do an ease out for this particular box as the camera will not be facing the box at that point of time.

Another example of the edits in graph editor. Here, I wanted the cargo box to seem like it was forcefully hitting the cargo belt, being so, the action was fast and thus, I made it more pointed.

Followed by slightly giving it a curve at each end of the frame to have that ease-out ease-in effect.

Overall, that is how I did my animation. I finished things off by texturing the boxes and the plane, as well as removed the sightings of "ArmControl", "camera1", etc, from the playblast file so that it looked nicer and more professional.

Critic

On the positive side, I feel that my animation is fairly interesting and fun to watch. I am surprised with myself for using the ability to moved the camera to my advantage, by giving my animation an earthquake-like effect. I felt that this aspect made my work very unique and allowed me to create that humorous spark as well as a slight exaggeration to create that kick of drama and appeal. Also, in terms of timing, I am quite satisfied with my work as, being someone who aims for perfect timing, such as when movies are watched and a particular scene occurs at the right time, not too early, not too late, I consider my work to be quite well thought out, taking into account that I am still a rookie at animation. The change of events seem to happen at the correct time and although there we a little off points, such as when the cargo box turns to look at the crashed box,which I felt was too fast, it was quite good.

However, on the negative side of things, I feel that there were many ways that I could improve my animation.

Firstly, I should give my magnet the squash-and-stretch effect when picking up the box. Initially, I thought that since it was a magnet, it should be a firm structure but after having a look at my friend's work, I realize that adding this effect in would greatly improve my animation.

Also, I should add a stretch-effect to the box when it speeds out of the scene. Now, the box simply speeds out of screen, keeping its shape. If I stretched it a little as it speeds out, it further shows the "intensity" of how fast it was traveling which would make the crash more believable.

To add on, my animation on a whole was not very smooth. By having several fast movements in my animation, like the robotic arm hitting the cargo belt and the box speeding out, I wanted to create actions that were abrupt and sudden and by doing that, it was difficult to create those actions but still maintain a smooth animation. I am certain that this is possible to accomplished but unfortunately, my lack of animation skills created a blockage to this accomplishment.

In all, my animation is focused mainly on timing and camera skills where the timing of each event and change of event made the animation, in my opinion, good, while the camera skills made it funny due to the exaggerations created from it. Also, through "shaking" the camera, I was able to create stronger looking effects that I feel squash-and-stretch could not.

Reflection

Like all animation, in my opinion, this assignment was easy but difficult to perfect. Having gone through this process, I am amazed and scared of the work animators have to go through. It was very easy to set key poses for each element at various time frames but timing them was hard. Being someone that critics movies based on the timing of scenes a well as the timing between each scene transaction, I was very critical with myself and worked hard to achieve the timing I wanted. Even now, although my animation is satisfactory to me, it is only after considering that I am a rookie in animation. What shocks me is that animators have work that go on for minutes while my animation was only seconds.

Also, I feel that there much that I can still learn about animation, namely that of the technical aspects, like squash-and-stretch effects. Despite creating exaggeration by using the camera, it is an irony that I was unwilling to create exaggeration by using squash-and-stretch not because I was unable to, but rather, because I felt that in real life, cargo boxes cannot be squashed and flattened for they are metal and solid. This applies for the magnet too. Being so, I decided to create stage effect rather than item effects, where I shook the camera instead of squash the magnet to let audiences' feel the intensity of the hit.

Ultimately, I am proud to have been so imaginative and critical about timings ever since I was young, for it has helped me in this assignment, allowing me to achieve effects that I never would have thought of. I will improve on my animating skills namely the technical aspects, as I feel that these are the things that are holding me back from creating animations that I thought up.

Assignment 2 Part 1

Scenario 4

The same as for scenario 1, the robot is busy stacking boxes.

However, in this case, once the robot has finished stacking a box, the remaining boxes do NOT move forward.

Animate the reaction of the robot, and how it deals with this sudden turn of events.

Character

I have decided to name my robot Lifty for he is a robot that lifts and apparently, these are his thoughts on his work.

"Moving boxes again. Lift.Lift.Lift. I wonder if there is something out there I can do other than this. Maybe I could ask my creator the next time he shows up. If he does that is. Oh well, I guess I should stop thinking too much and do my job, my non-paying job. Why do I even need money?

Argh, all these lifting is making my joints hurt."

Judging by his thoughts, it can be seen that Lifty is carefree and quite easygoing. His questions to himself are replied by himself. I wonder if this reciprocates in real-life. Does he solve his own problems?

Week 13

Process

Unfortunately I did not take any screenshot of my work while doing it. However, because this piece of work followed that of a tutorial provided, I will be using the pictures that they have to explain my work.

Upon opening the file provided, I obtained this.

After doing so, I opened hypergraph and started to create a skeleton for my mechanical arm by using the skeleton > joint tool, following the order provided in the tutorial. I had to ensure that each click was at the center of the of the object. Click 1 to 3 were easy as the click was on a circle which had guidelines which made it easier, however, for the last click, I had to estimate the click's position.

From here on out, screenshots are taken by me. After doing so, I parented each pin according to its joint as shown below, with joint4 parenting ArmEnd.

With that, SwivelBase is made the parent of joint1 like so.

Next is applying IK where I used Skeleton > IK handle tool and selected two points on my mechanical arm, the first at the base.

And the second at the tip of the mechanical arm.

After doing that, I created a locator using create > locator, positioning it slightly above the front end of the arm and renaming it ArmControl and freezing its transformation by using Modify > Freeze transformation.

I create > annotation and typed in ArmControl

Selecting annotationLocator1 and annotation1, and in side view, moved it slightly to the left of the locator object. After doing that, I selected ArmControl and ikHandle1 respectively and used constrain > point allowing me to move the head of my mechanicalArm when armControl is selected along with this step, I set the x,y and z transformation of ArmControl to zero before selecting ArmControl and join4 respectively and constrain > orient to allow me to move my mechanical arm with its magnet maintaining its downward position when ArmControl is selected.

Next, I locked attributes that should not be changed of ArmControl and SwivelBase such as translate X for ArmControl.

After doing so, I selected ikHandle1, ArmControl and SwivelBase respectively and used edit > parent making ikHandle1 and ArmControl child nodes for swivelbase node.

Next, I set limited the arms range by setting the following for ArmControl tab.

Trans Limit Y ( Min ): -13

Trans Limit Y ( Max ): 7.5

Trans Limit Z ( Min ): -13

Trans Limit Z ( Max ): 1

Moving to Perspective view and setting ArmControl's Translate Y to -1 and Translate Z to 0, I selected ArmControl and CargoBox respectively from the hypergraph and used Constrain > parent.

I then set rotate Y of SwivelBase to -100 before selecting Platform and CargoBox respectively before Constrain > parent it. I then set the weighting for the parent constraints by setting CargoBox's Platform W1 to 0, Swivelbase's rorate Y to 0 and fianlly, selecting CargoBox and Constrain > Set Rest Position while setting its ArmControl W0 to 0. After doing these, I begin doing the animation.

First, I set the playback Start Time to 1 and the end time to 180.

After which, I began setting the ArmControl, SwivelBase, CargoBox parentConstraint according to the table provided in the tutorial to achieve the mechanic arm movement shown above. Paired with an additional moving of the box much like a cargo belt carrying the box to the arm, the final animation above is born.

These are some of the key positions of the entire animation such as the box being picked up and placed down.

Reflection

This piece of work requires a large amount of concentration as I feel that each step has to be taken with utmost precaution as one mistake could result in needing to redo the entire work. Such things are that of ensuring that each node is parenting the correct node along with the order of selecting this.

This assignment gives me a better grasp of what animation can do as well as the complexity involved. Although I am sure that there are much more things that are available, this was a great start off point.

A problem I faced while doing this was that of the constraints. At on point after I moved the box to give it that "Cargo-belt" effect, the box did not follow the magnet like it did when the "cargo-belt effect" was not added which was extremely bothersome.

However, after listening to my teacher, I was able to solve this by changing CargoBox's Blend Parent 1, Arm Control W0 and Platform W1 accordingly, an example is that of when the box is suppose to be picked up at frame 60, at frame 59, these three attributes are set to 0 and at frame 60, Blend Parent 1 and Arm Control W0 is set to 1 while Platform W1 remains as 0.

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.

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).

One example is that of the chirpy and cheerful impression I felt when looking at Luxo Jr. move. From the way he walked, or rather, hopped, I felt like he was a child as he seemed to be hopping around very at a fast speed making him seem agile, unlike the big lamp where I felt that the big lamp was moving quite slowly which gave off the impression that the big lamp was older as usually, elderly would not be as agile as kids.

Another example is that of at one point when Luxo Jr burst the ball. The big lamp seemed to be comforting Luxo Jr where he nodded towards him. This gave me the impression that the big lamp wad older as usually, it would be the older one who comforts kids when they are depressed.

The last example is that of how the animator made Luxo Jr. react to the ball, where his motions made him seem to react strongly to what happens to the ball, where here was extremely jumpy and fast when he was playing with the ball and sad, noticed from how he hopped away slowly and how he looked at the floor as if he was depressed, while the big lamp was quite neutral seeing that his actions were all very slow and not as strong.

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

In my opinion, the timing was made to make Luxo Jr. seem agile due to his speed. Paired up with the chirpy and cheerful-like sound, the speed seemed to keep the audiences focused on him and because of spacing between each humorous aspect which is done by timing it, audiences can fully grasp the joke before seeing the next one which allows them to fully appreciate the humourous moment.

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.

By doing this, the elements inside can be rotated as if they were a single unit on its own where a comment pivot point is created at the parent node level. This allows for separate elements to rotate as if they were one unit. This is important to ensure that an animation is natural as many times, an action does not move only one joint but rather, more than one, and these joints have to follow an arc to look natural.

Week 10 Lab 2

Exercise 1

By dragging the pictures provided, I obtained this animation. Nothing else was done to achieve this.

Part B

Process

Having played bowling, I do know that the ball practically does not have any squash and stretch effects at all, seeing that the bowling ball itself is hard. However, I did try to add a little squash effect to it so as to properly try out this exercise.

First, I drew out the key positions of the bowling ball so as to know where I have to end up at. After which, I connected them with dotted lines, ensuring that it follows an arc and finally, numbering them.

Through this chart, I used the program pencil to do my animation. A complication that I faced was that of giving the ball a squash effect. Although I knew I had to give it a little, practically none at all, and was able to visualize it in my head, actually drawing it out was difficult.

Part C

Process

I decided to animate the video of us throwing the ball up and catching it and just like part B, I drew the chart first, starting off with the two key positions which is that of the ball at its peak and when it is in the hands.

After which, I animated accordingly, drawing the ball along the chart's path.

Exercise 2

What is ease-in ease-out in reference to animation.

To me, the idea is that of easing out from one key position and easing into the next key position where you slowly move out from one position, rather than start off at a fast velocity, and slowly move in to the next key position, rather than stop abruptly. This allows for the animation to be more natural looking.

What does frames-per-second mean?

It is the amount of frames being traversed in a second, where each frame contains slight alterations of the elements inside, which is then seen as an animation when traversed quickly.

The three main positions are that of the two ends and at the peak. Being so, more circles are drawn in these areas so as to allow the ball have additional frames to ease into these key positions and ease out of these positions.

Reflection

Animation charts makes animating easier. I feel that by knowing where the key positions are, I was able to better complete all these exercises as I knew where I was suppose to end at each given point. Squash and Stretch is also a very simple to understand concept too but plays a big role in making animations much more realistic, however, I wish that I could actually prove this with good animations but my lack of arts skills just disallows me too.

Week 11

Exercise 1

Process

Upon opening the file provided, I obtained this.

Starting off, I located the key positions and began positioning them and setting key frames.

After doing that, I had to make it look more natural and by opening the graph editor and setting the editor to show only my translate X and translate Y, I obtained this.

Using the scale tool, I made the duration shorter, from the animation ending at frame 72, to ending at frame 48. After which, I broke the tangent of point at the valley at Translate Y and using the move tool, moved both tangents such that it had a sharper V.

Finally, I broke the tangent at the first point of translate Y and using the move tool, moved its "right-tangent" and the "left-tangent" of the point at the valley to give it a nice curve. I did the same to the other curve at the end. Also, I deleted the three points in between the first and last point of translate X as they were not needed.

With that, I obtained the animation shown above.

Exercise 2

Through the animation chart from week 10's lab, I set key frames at areas where my key positions had to be set, namely at frames when the ball was either at its peak or when it bounces. I used the grid as a base to check and ensure that the ball bounces in a correct direction.

Next, using the graph editor, I broke the tangents of the points at the valleys and using the move tool, moved them so that a sharp V is made.

After doing it for all of the valley's points, as well as shift it slightly so as to obtain a I achieved this.

With that, I obtained the animation shown above.

Lab 2

Exaggerated Ball

Not Exaggerated Ball

After creating a sphere and grouping it together twice, as well as modify > Center pivot the 3 selections, I parented a Nonlinear > Squash attribute, called squash1Handle to translate_ball_gp.

I then created a base using a plane polygon, giving it color by assigning it a new material.

I then begin setting key frames at key positions, namely the peaks and bounces.

And just like the other exercises, I used the graph editor to break the tangents of the points at the valleys and using the move tool, moved the tangents to give it a sharp V as well as a nice curve at the top.

Finally, by changing the rotated Z attribute of rotate_ball_gp at frame 1 to 1 and frame 100 to -1200 , the ball rotates while it moves and with that the ball bounce sequence is completed. For the squash and stretch effect, I simply changed the squash1handle's attribute called factor to suit the condition, -1 being that of when it is squashed, 0 when it is normal or at its peak and 1 when it is stretched.

For the exaggerated ball, I made the numbers have a larger difference from one another so that the effect is much more stronger and the difference between positions is very vast.

For the not exaggerated ball, I made the numbers have a smaller difference from one another so that the effect is not as strong and the difference between positions in more subtle.

With that, I completed this lab too.

Reflection

I love the graph editor. It simply makes animating so much more easier and natural looking. Simply by breaking a tangent and shifting it, I can make a ball seem more realistic in terms of its bouncing motion which is very pleasing to see. Also, what I have learnt in week 10 is brought forward. Setting of key positions allows me to know where I have to aim for.

Finally, I feel that applying the squash and stretch effect is rather difficult in terms of capturing the proper effect that skilled animators are able to do. I feel that I will need more experience and time to actually animate a decent squash and stretch effect bounce.

After getting feedback from my teacher, I realize that there are ways to improve my work for this week. One being that of the camera angle, where he told me that when looking at a squash and stretch effect, it would be better to look from the side view as it enables the viewer to actually see how the ball maneuvers through each frames; the amount of squash and stretch effect applied.

Another method of improvement would be that of the effect itself where my teacher told me that the effect was applied throughout in an up and down motion and not that of in the direction of the ball. Meaning, for my animation, the squash and stretch effect is seen as stretching up and downwards rather than that of slanted slightly in the direction of the ball. This was something which I did not know and would embed into future assignments.

Why is squash and stretch so useful in animation?

I feel that it is useful as it allows for our animations to look natural and life-like as well as allows us to leave our audiences with a stronger impact if we choose to exaggerate the action.

Think of a situation in which extreme squash and stretch could be applied to a character

Seeing that I am someone who is interested in very exaggerated animation, my choice of situation would be that when an energy bolt is being controlled by a caster into attacking his enemy whom is continuously pummeled by this one bolt. The effect is applied mainly when the bolt collides with the enemy. Other than the obvious squash being applied when colliding and stretch when moving, another area where this effect can take place is upon collision when the human's skin has a slight squash effect due to the blow, and a stretch effect upon the ball leaving.

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

I feel that a squash and stretch effect would not be appropriate for animations that have no form of contact or impact in it such as flying with no wind resistance.

If squash and stretch doesn't really happen so obviously in real life, why do you think is it so effective in animation.

This allows our animation to look more lively as what we are animating are merely a combination of polygons. Also, it allows us animators to carry out certain animations which leaves a stronger impact on our audiences, making our animations much more nicer and possibly, natural or realistic.