Week 12

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

Yes, as I feel that one indeed needs to draw well to create a good 2D animation as I feel that although many teachers tell us that we do not need to be good in drawing to excel in designing, animation being one of these factors, being able to draw allows one to create beautiful images that will entice his audiences. Furthermore, by having this ability, mixed in with effort and understanding of animation that can be obtained even by those who do not excel in art, beautiful 2D animation can be created. Where on the other hand, people who have the same amount of effort and understand but lack the talent, will create only decent animation that gives off a natural feel but will be unable to entice its audiences due to the poor drawing that would make it not captivating.

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

Although it is animation as well, my answer slightly differs from that of my first question as now, have different opinions. On one hand, I feel that one does not need to draw well to be able to create good 3D animation as primitive shapes and simple tools are present in various animating applications, like MAYA, that allows the person to easily create a proper model and animate it, given the right skill and understanding.

On the other hand, I also feel that one needs to draw well to create good 3D animation as although these tools are given to them, this lack of skill might prevent them from creating excellent models using this primitive shapes as they are unable to fully picture or create the a beautiful model of what they envisioned in their head, unlike that of someone who possesses the skill of art who can full draw out what he has envisioned and thus, also allow him to create that via MAYA.

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?

Effort and time aside, I feel that i can determine the quality of the work based on how natural it looks and the emotions that it makes me feel, whether it moves in a certain and proper way and whether it makes me feel sad or happy when I have to.

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 it does not. Bluntly, I have to say that initially, I have no experience in animation whatsoever, being so, these information that clearly shows that there is a difference in method of animation between the two however, having no experience before, I am simply learning what I have to, be in 2D animation or 3D, thus, not affecting me at all.

Judging by the terms used however, I feel that 2D animation requires more precision as compared to 3D. Being so, I feel that I would approach 2D work much more carefully while approach 3D less on the careful side but more on increasing my pace of doing the work as it seems that 3D animation requires more work.

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.

To start off, Maya has a variation of shortcuts to carry out any given particular task where we, the users, have to find the right shortcut that suits us. Even the basic aspect of modeling the object is made easy through the various operations available, ranging from apply a surface that comes in a variety of different types like blinn, to simply extruding it. Add this on to the also highly sophisticated animation operations, which also has its large variations, ranging from having a mini-camera which users can move to achieve the desired camera angle, to simply creating a path for the object to move on, and one can easily create a decent animation in no time.