Week 12 Labs 1 & 2 - Online Tutorial Reflection

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

The animator need not have great drawing skills, but he/she must have sufficient amount of drawing skills in order to make the animation look plausible enough. No one would want to look at a sequences of non-readable scribbles in an animation. It must be clear enough to show what the animator is doing. More importantly is the 12 basic principles of animation. The animation will look better once the 12 basic principles are applied.

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

Basically, I think 3D animation would be easier on those who cannot draw very well. 3D uses models and meshes, so if you are more of a practical person, then you would fare better than people who can draw well. However, the good ability to draw = the good ability to picture things. If a person can picture things better, of course it would help them better in their animation. Best is if a person can have both at the same time.

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?

To decide whether a piece of animation is good or bad would be to check whether how many basic principles of animation are there in a piece of animation. If there are close to none in an animation, the audience would have no idea what the animator is trying to do. All the characters would be like robots, having not much or no realism at all. The next factor is the frames per second of an animation. If the frames per second of an animation is too low, the animation would look very choppy and not smooth.

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.

Yes. Because of my past experiences with animation, I am accustomed to doing frame by frame animations with programs such as adobe imageready. I would usually photoshop a sequence of images, with each image slightly different than the previous image and then join them together using imageready. However, in Maya, the movements of everything is simplified and it saves time also. Now, I am trying hard to work with the interface of Maya as I am still not accustomed to animating with Maya.

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.

I feel that the interface of Maya is hard to work with. This is because the tools are situated in a very messy manner and that first time users for Maya or newcomers will have extreme difficulty getting accustomed to the interface. It is very hard to find what you are looking for, and one small mistake might lead you to having redo your entire animation. Even the playback of Maya is too fast, as when you try to play it normally in Maya (not playblasting), it does not adhere to the fps (frames per second) rate that I have set and moves abnormally fast, rendering me unable to see anything. However, what I like about Maya is the animation graph. It is easy to use and very good to refer to.

Week 11 Lab 2 - Squash & Stretch

This is how I create a bouncing ball animation with squash & stretch in Maya.

Process

First, I created a new sphere object. Then, I grouped it with itself twice so that one group would handle the translate values and one group would handle the rotate values. I then locked all the unnecessary attributes for each group and locked all the attributes of the sphere.

I then locked all the values of the squash handle except for the rotate attributes and the factor.

I then created a new polygonal plane for the ball to bounce on and textured everything.

I then input different translate values at different frames:

I then opened up the animation graph and then changed the curves so that the bounces look more linear and natural.

At the points where the ball hits the ground, I changed the squash factor of the ball to either -0.5 or 0.5 for squash and stretch respectively. Then, at I made the ball rotate by setting two keyframes, frames 1 and frames 100, with frame 100 have the value of rotate z at -1200.

This is the end result of my bouncing ball animation with squash & stretch:

Questions

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

Squash and Stretch is useful in the sense that it gives a realistic feel if used carefully. However, if used too much, it could give out a more cartoony feel. So varied squash & stretch could be used to give the desired feel of the animation.

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

A person was extremely angry at his enemy because the enemy stole all his clothes, his money and his games. So the person used all his force and punched the enemy right in the face. And the enemy's face went through extreme squash and stretch.

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

A person punching a metal box. When the metal box is punched, there will be squash in the sense that the metal box will get dented, but then it will not fall back into its original position.

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

This is because animation is exaggerated from real life. Animation has to give off feeling and environment to stimulate what our five senses would know. Squash and stretch is one of the techniques that help us visualise better what is the animation trying to portray.

Techniques

I have learnt how to give squash and stretch to a bouncing ball animation, by using the squash deformer.

I have learnt how to make a ball rotate as the animation goes on.

Reflection

My animation was not that good this time either.

However, I felt that this animation made me more familiar with Maya and that now I feel more confident using Maya.

References

Maya Online Help

Week 11 Lab 1 - Keyframes

This is how i create a simple animation of a ball bouncing in Maya.

Process

Exercise 1

First, I click on the ball and set a keyframe at 1.

Then, at the frame 72, I moved the ball to the edge of the table and then set a keyframe there. Then, i went back to frame 1 and played the animation. The ball went right through the fence.

I then moved to frame 34 where the ball is right in the middle of the fence. I then moved the ball upwards and then set a keyframe there. When I played the animation, the ball now travels in a smooth arc across the table.

I then switched to frame 50 and moved the ball so that it would be touching the table. I then set a keyframe and moved to frame 60. This time, I moved the ball upwards a little and set a keyfraem there. When i played the animation, it looks as if the ball bounces off the table and then bounces out. Also, when the ball bounces, it looks as if the ball slides off the table.

I then opened the graph editor and then made the tangents linear. This made the bounce look more sharp and linear, making it more realistic.

This is the result of my bouncing ball:

Exercise 2

First, I created a red bowling ball in Maya, by creating a sphere and then using booleans - difference to difference several cylinders in it to make the holes.

Then, I moved the bowling ball to a high point and set a keyframe at frame 1.

After placing the bowling ball at several high and low points, this is how my animation graph looks like. The animation was a bit shabby at first, so i tweaked the animation here and there by manipulating the animation graph.

This is the result of my bowling ball animation:

Techniques

I have learnt how to set keyframes in this lesson.

I have also learnt how to use the animation graph to help make my animation looks more sharp and realistic.

Also, I learnt how to playblast the maya file into a movie.

Reflection

This exercise was rather fun to do.

Although my bowling ball animation might have screwed up a little, I still think I learnt alot in this exercise.

I have also realised how hard it is to make animations look realistic. This is because the physics of the animation will never be perfect, and that timing is also crucial.

References

Maya Online Help

Week 10 Lab 2 - Bouncing Ball Animations

Exercise 1

This is how I created my animations.

Process

a) Bouncing Ball Animation

First, I created an animation chart for my bouncing ball animation to path how the ball moves. Then, I drew out several ball objects at the highest and lowest points of the bouncing animation. This shall be my guideline for the rest of my bouncing ball animation.

If I play my animation now, it would look very staggered and the ball will just move around from one place to another without any motion. Therefore, I have to include buffer frames for my animation so that it would look smoother.

This is how the timeline of my bouncing ball animation looks like after the buffer frames have been added. Whilst adding the buffer frames, I modified the timeline by shifting keyframes so that it would make sure the timing of the ball coincides with the speed at which the ball is bouncing at.

This is the result of my simple bouncing ball animation with pencil:

b) Bowling Ball Animation

This is the animation chart of my bowling ball. Since a bowling ball is heavy, there would not be much squash and stretch and much less bounce on the ball.

This is the result of my bowling ball animation:

c) Rough animation

This is the animation chart of my rough animation. There are three layers, the body layer, the hand layer for hand movements and the animation chart.

This is the result of my animation:

Exercise 2

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

Ease in means that the animation starts out slow and ends up fast. Ease out means that the animation starts out fast and ends up slow.

2. What does frames-per-second mean?

It represents the amount of frames that run through in one second. One frame = one picture. The higher the fps of an animation is, the smoother the animation.

3.The spacing of the ticks in the animation chart below is for an object bouncing with linear speed over 12 frames - draw a similar chart, but with ease-in and ease-out

Techniques

This exercise made me familiar with different animation techniques, such as onion skin, keyframes, ease-in ease-out and animation charts.

Reflection

Maybe because I have some sort of animation background, I felt that this exercise was quite easy to do.

I didn't really like the interface of Pencil though. Maybe because I was more used to big programs such as adobe flash and adobe imageready.

Overall, I felt that this exercise has given me a refreshing new look on animation.

References

Pencil guides

Week 10 Lab 1 - 12 Basic Principles of Animation

Exercise 1 & 2

Squash & Stretch

The ball bounces off the ground several times, giving it a squash and stretch feel when it deforms.

Anticipation

This can be counted as anticipation in the sense that I would want to anticipate the blast that I am going to fire, hence the charging up stance.

Staging

As you can see, the animation is focused on me jumping, ignoring much of the background.

Straight Action or Pose to Pose

This clip is using the pose to pose principle as you can see, the moves are abrupt and they are not that smooth. There are many sudden pauses in the movement.

Follow through & Overlapping action

This principle can be seen when I jump, and then my hair moves too.

Slow in and out

This can be seen when I bounce the ball towards my friend, having extreme points when the ball reaches the ground.

Arcs

As I throw my ball to my friend, the movement of the ball creates an arc.

Secondary Action

As you can see in the video, I move my arms when I run.

Timing

The ball gets slower as it reaches the ground.

Exaggeration

As I "Punch" my friend, he stumbles, creating an exaggerated effect that my punch hurt.

Solid Drawing

As the ball gets nearer to the wall, the shadow gets smaller.

Appeal

My friend slams the table before punching me, giving the impression that he is angry.

Exercise 3

Staging - 0:38

The camera is focused on Poison (the girl) as she talks.

Anticpation - 0:40

Hugo (the big guy) anticipates his kick when he was going to kick the cage open.

Follow through & Overlapping action - 0:44

As Hugo runs, his hair moves too.

Exaggeration - 0:48

As Hugo lands, Marduk (the bald guy) stumbles due to the impact of the jump and Hugo's weight, suggesting that Hugo is extremely big.

Squash & Stretch - 0:53

As Marduk gets hit right in his face, his face deforms, giving Squash and Stretch

Timing - 1:26

As King (The guy wearing the cheetah mask) grabs Hugo by his legs, he swings him, building momentum and swinging faster as he moves.

Arcs - 1:32

As King swings Hugo, it forms a circle around him.

Appeal - 1:54

Guy (The person on the left) crosses his arms, giving him a serious and cool look.

Techniques

This exercise has taught me the 12 basic principles of animation.

Reflection

I think this exercise was rather easy.

It was also rather fun too, when i was taking videos of me and my friends doing all the movements that we are supposed to do in the lab sheet. I find this exercise very important, and I think that the 12 basic principles of animation are much less burned into my head.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_basic_principles_of_animation