3. Self-Critique

Discuss the success of your animation.

Also discuss how you applied the principles of animation, with examples.

Note: a good critique of a poor animation can still gain marks.

The animation that I have done makes use of some of the principles of animation.

The first principle would be the Timing. At 22 seconds, my final video is very short. I set every keyframe from the 305th keyframe onwards, very closely to each other. This was done to get a fast animation, beginning from the time when the ball appears in front of the robot. I believe that the movement of the ball should be fast in order for it to capture the robot's attention. And because the robot is fascinated by it and therefore, looking at the ball, it's movements had to be fast as well. However, I could have still used the graph editor to slowdown the entire animation.


The second principle is ease in and out. This principle was applied in that particular story arc when the robot sees the ball. The robot's momentum is slowed down at that point of time. This shows some of the easing in in the animation. For the ease out, I could have done set the keyframes more further apart from each other towards the end. This will slow down the speed at which the ball moves and since the robot is constantly looking at the ball, it's movement will also be slower. 


For the squash and stretch principle was not done right in many areas of the animation. For example, the ball is squashed on many occasions, before even coming into contact with a surface. This can be seen in the 370th keyframe when the ball becomes squashed before it touches the ground. Although the ball could have resumed its original shape when it reaches its peak, I instead, made it the most stretched at that same keyframe to illustrate the amount of influence that the squash has on the stretch. Overall, the squash and stretch effects used are in extreme. This is to exaggerate the movement of the ball.


Anticipation can be found from the very beginning of the video when audience are able to see the ball on one of the boxes, even before the robot does. This will build up anticipation in the audience as they will be wondering why it is there. 


This project, I felt, was done alright. There are many things which I felt I could have done or added. The main thing would be the use of the graph editor to slow down the entire animation, especially from the 305th keyframe onwards. This could have made my final video longer as well.

Week 12

create a sphere

add bump map

lock all except Translate X, Y and Rotate Z

set keyframe at 1

set time frame to 48

move the ball down

RMB>Playback Speed>Play Every Frame, Max Real-Time

Window>Animation Editor>Graph Editor

go to Translate Y

break tangent

adjust the curve

select Translate X

Curves>Weighted Tangent

adjust the curve

select Rotate Z

select the last keyframe

adjust the curve

Create Deformers>Nonlinear>Squash

change factor to -0.5

lock Rotate X, Y, Z

change high bound to 1.5

change Translate X, Y and Rotate X

move down 5 keyframes and change factor to -0.4

move down 5 keyframes and change factor to -0.4

move down 5 keyframes and change factor to 0.3

move down 5 keyframes and change factor to -0.2

move down 5 keyframes and change factor to 0.1

move down 5 keyframes and change factor to 0

go to keyframe 24 and break tangent

Window>Animation Editor>Dope Sheet

View>Scene Summary

highlight the scene summary

adjust the curve

Edit>Snap

Create>Lights>Ambient Light

change ambient shade to 0.3

From your (still very) basic experience with 2D and 3D animation, discuss the following questions on your weblog.

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

Yes, 2D is all about drawing.

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

No, 3D animation is not done by drawing. It is done by modeling objects in programmes.

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?

An animation is good if it appears realistic.

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, they are very similar. Everything has to be done frame by frame.

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 is easy to use. For example, the graph editor makes adjusting an animation simpler. There are also many shortcuts in Maya such as using W key to move. This way, we save a lot of time as we need not spend time searching for the function in the program.

Post your responses to your weblog by the start of next week.

REFLECTION

This exercise will not be difficult if you are able to follow the instructions closely. I had to redo this exercise severa times after missing out on a few times. This was a complete waste of my time.

Week 13

Exercise 2

Exercise 4

Discuss the following questions on your weblog.

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).

Firstly, the big lamp moves slower as compared to the small lamp. This is because the big lamp is "older" and so it moves slower.

Secondly, only the small lamp is interested in playing with the ball. Again, this is because the big lamp is "older" and similar to humans, an adult would not play with a ball in the way that small lamp does.

Thirdly, the big lamp shakes its head - something that is more commonly seen in older people.

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

It becomes sad for awhile after what happened to the ball, but then comes back shortly after with a bigger ball and is happy once again.

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.

This is to allow more joints to move at the same time. This adds to the realism in an animation as most actions do not only consist of a single joint. It will appear unnatural if only one joint moves at a time.


reflection
This was a very useful but exercise.