Week 11 Lab 2: Adding Squash & Stretch to a Ball

Tennis Ball

Beach Ball

1) Why is squash and stretch so useful in animation?
It is useful in animation because it gives realism to the animation. For example when a ball such as a basketball hits the ground, we can see it being stretched and squashed when looking at it in slow motion but we do not notice it in real life as it happens too fast for our eyes to capture.

2) Think of a situation in which extreme squash and stretch could be applied to a character.
When a character with a beer belly walks, the beer belly will move up and down causing squash and stretch.

3) Think of an animation example where squash and stretch would NOT be appropriate.
A large boulder or rock.

4) If squash and stretch doesn't really happen so obviously in real life why do you think it is so effective in animation?
It gives more in-depth motion to the animation and can be used to create humour and also the illusion of life.

Research on why it is necessary to group the ball mesh to itself:
It gives us a separate set of channels for each type of transform such as translation, rotation and scaling.

Reflection
For this lab exercise, I found that adding squash and stretch to a ball is quite challenging and I felt that I could do better for the animation as shown above. However I now know the reason why we are supposed to group the ball mesh to itself and hopefully this knowledge will help me in future exercises.

Week 12 Lab 1 & 2: Animation - 3D

Exercise 1
This is the link to the exercise: Maya Bouncing Ball

Part 1 Reflection
Link: Part 1: Project Folders, Working Units, Grid Options
I learned about the importance of setting a new project when creating animations in Maya so that all the files used in the animations are all neatly and clearly categorized to be found easily. I also learned about the grid options and that you can alter it to meet your needs.

Part 2 Reflection
Link: Part 2: Grid Options, Scene Layout, Viewport Cameras
I learned that we need to adjust the cameras so that it can capture the whole scene properly. I also learned some tips such as saving scene files of different versions and naming it with numbers so that there is a safety net to fall onto when a mistake is accidentally made.

Part 3 Reflection
Link: Part 3: Camera & Aim, Resolution Gate, Assign Material
There are plenty of stuff which I do not make use of before such as cameras and resolution gate. These two things are new to me and I find myself learning a lot.

Part 4 Reflection
Link: Part 4: Blinn Shader, Ramp Map, File Map
I learned that to make an object look like plastic, the reflectivity in Specular Shading needs to be 0. I also learned 2 new terms - procedural texture/map and interpolation/blending.

Part 5 Reflection
Link: Part 5: Bump Map, Render View, Freeze Transformations
I noticed that having a bump map makes the file map have more details and look more life-like. I learned that we can rotate an object in the world mode and have freeze transformations on it to create a more realistic-looking object that rotates more realistically.

Part 6 Reflection
Link: Part 6: Lock Selected Channels, Set Key, Playback Speed
I noticed that locking selected channels helps to make the animation process easier because we do not have to worry about accidentally changing any transforms which we do not intend to change. I also learned that it is recommended to set the playback speed in real-time and we can do this by right-clicking on the time slider, hover to 'Playback Speed' and selecting 'Play Every Frame, Max Real-time'.

Part 7 Reflection
Link: Part 7: Graph Editor, Break Tangents, Free Tangent Weight
For this video, I have already learned about the graph editor, break tangents and free tangent weight from previous tutorials and also lab lessons in school. However, I am introduced to new terms such as Bezier spline.

Part 8 Reflection
Link: Part 8: Scale Keys Tool, Ball Rotation, Squash Deformer
Before watching this video, I thought that the scale keys tool could only scale keys from side to side. However after watching the video, I realized that it is possible to scale it from top to bottom as well.

Part 9 Reflection
Link: Part 9: Parenting, Squash Factor, Key Selected
I learned that the boundaries can be altered to achieve a more realistic squashed ball. I am introduced to a new term called keyframe interpolation/automatic in-betweening. I realized that a bouncing ball is squashed and stretched even after having contact with the ground. Lastly, I learned the proper way to keyframe the factor - after changes made to factor > select factor > select channels > select key selected.

Part 10 Link: Part 10: Step Tangents, Dope Sheet, Scene Summary
Part 11 Link: Part 11: Directional Light, Raytrace Shadows, Render Settings
Part 12 Link: Part 12: Shadow Colour, Ambient Light, Batch Render Settings
Part 13 Link: Part 13: Batch Rendering, Fcheck, Quicktime Export

Exercise 2
1) Do you need to be able to draw well to create good 2D animation? Explain your view.
No. I feel that having good drawing skills is an added bonus to the 2D animation and it is good to have but not compulsory. If a person has good drawing skills, he/she may not have good 2D animation skills. Whereas a person with good 2D animation skills can make his drawings animate realistically even if it does not look as good as the original image.

2) Do you need to be able to draw well to create good 3D animation? Explain your view.
No. We are able to create 3D animation in Maya and the program allows us to construct shapes into objects and applying images onto these objects as textures. With these features, I do not see the need of having good drawing skills because all the materials needed are the Maya software and a good camera to take pictures for the texture images and we will be all set to creating good 3D animations.

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?
In my opinion, a good animation would be closely relevant to it's real-life counterpart. It should also stick to animation standards as close as possible. For a poor animation, it would be the opposite.

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.
The approach for the animation work is different. For 2D animation, we were introduced to the Pencil software and the Maya software for 3D animation. Other than the difference in terms of software used, there is also a difference in setting keys. For 2D animation, we need to set keys not only for the key frames but also for the in-between frames which results in a lot of keys being set. This becomes very taxing on the 2D animator especially if the 2D animation plays over a long duration of time. However for 3D animation, we only need to set keys for the key frames and the interpolation in Maya will help us manage the in-between frames. This is extremely helpful to the 3D animator as it saves a lot of time.

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 as an animation tool can be seen differently. It can be a difficult tool to use especially for first-timers who may not understand certain terms such as transforms and attributes and it can also be easy to use for users who understand these terms. In Maya, there are plenty of things to learn about and it requires a lot of time, patience and hard work to make full use of it. There are things that Maya does well and not so well in terms of creating animation. One of the things done well is the motion trail feature. With the motion trail, animators are able to visually see the path taken by an object during the animation. This allows changes to be made easily because we can see where the mistakes lie. One of the things done not so well is the saving of animation files. When we do animation, we sometimes commit mistakes. Our solution for this is to save multiple files of different versions. However, what if we forgot this and save the file by overwriting the previous one? The software in this case does not provide much help regarding this situation and the worse scenario would be to start our animation again from scratch.

Week 12 Lab 1: 3 Balls (Basketball, Lead ball, Balloon)

For this exercise, we are required to animate 3 balls - a basketball, a lead ball and a balloon.

This is the video of the completed exercise:

Reflection

For this exercise, I took less time to complete it unlike the previous bouncing ball exercise which needs to have the curve of the ball animated. I find that the animation for the basketball (LHS) and the lead ball (Middle) is well-animated. As for the balloon (RHS), I still feel that it animates like a beach ball instead. Overall, the exercise has taught me that the timing and speed of the animation can tell what type a ball is.

Week 13 Lab 1 & 2: Animation - 3D

During this lab lesson, the class is introduced to more complex animation through the usage of skeletons. We are told to follow a tutorial in the Maya Help documentation again about how to create a simple hierarchy of joint and then parent these joints. This process is called rigging/creating a rig.

Exercise 1

For the 1st exercise, we are watching this famous short movie which is the first film ever produced by Pixar. The director, John Lasseter, makes two simple lamps (parent & child) come alive with real personalities.

This is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmhZm5FRV4s

Exercise 2

For the 2nd exercise, we are going to start on the tutorial which covers creating a skeleton and inverse kinematics.

This is the link: http://download.autodesk.com/us/maya/2011help/files/Inverse_kinematics.htm

We also have a link to 3 Youtube videos (Tutorials Maya Rigging Basic 1,2 & 3 under 3D tutorials list) which is the same as the tutorial we are going to do.

This is the link: http://www.youtube.com/user/eptigo#p/c/D507DD09878ED1A9

This is what I did for the tutorial:

Research:

Difference between using Joint Tool only and using Joint Tool & IK Handle Tool for Skeleton

From the research, we can see that the skeleton on the left is made using only Joint Tool while the one on the right is made using Joint Tool and IK Handle Tool. The skeleton on the left is only able to move individual parts of the Skeleton resulting in Forward Kinematics while the skeleton on the right is able to move the Skeleton as a whole when moving the blue point.

Tutorial:

The videos below shows the animation of the robot.

Unrealistic Robot:

The video above shows an unrealistic animation of the robot because the motion is too smooth for it to feel like a machine. The screenshots below shows the curve created when the robot arm moves up and down is almost like a straight line.

Curve from the Front View

Curve from the Side View

Realistic Robot:

This is the video on how it animates after changes are made:

Now, the robot animation has become more realistic because the motion has stops and pauses in it to make it feel more mechanic. The screenshots below shows the amends made to the curves so that it does not look like a straight line.

Curve from Front View

Curve from Side View

Exercise 3

The above video shows the box moving at a linear speed past the robot crane before the robot crane lifts it up.

Reflection for Exercise 3
I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how I am supposed to get the box to move past the robot and be lifted up by it. I had a lot of attempts and all of it only allowed the box to move past the robot but not get lifted up by it. However in the end after I did the lab exercises for Week 11, I found out that the problem could be resolved by simply grouping the box to itself and adding keyframes for that particular group in order to animate what I am supposed to animate for the exercise.

Exercise 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.

1. Motion Variety - The small lamp has a larger motion variety than the big lamp such as jumping and hopping as seen in the video which shows that the small lamp has more energy than the big lamp.

2. Motion Range - The small lamp has a bigger motion range than the big lamp. The small lamp is animated to move about all around the video while the big lamp is animated at an allocated position in the video. This gives the small lamp a larger movement space than the big lamp.

3. Motion Speed - The small lamp has a faster motion speed than the big lamp. The actions done by the small lamp has a faster pace than those done by the big lamp. This shows that the small lamp is more active than the big lamp.

Thus , the three examples above show that the big lamp is "older" and that the small lamp is "younger".

 

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

The big ball which rolls across the screen after the reaction of the big lamp. The timing when the ball rolls across the screen was timed nicely together with the reaction of the big lamp to give a bit of humour to the video.

 

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.

The first joint is at the top and the last joint is at the bottom because the motion starts off at the first joint to create forward kinematics so that the last joint will be able to move. When the first joint is selected, the rest of the joints below it till the last joint is also selected as all of them fall under the parent of the first joint. This would then allow the joints to work properly.

Reflection

When doing the lab exercises, I took less time to animate the robot than I did last time with the bouncing ball. During the process, I did not meet any major difficulties and I enjoyed the robot animation process. I found out that if I actually did the animation in a step-by-step sequence to resolve the issues it has, it actually makes the animation process much easier and faster. When watching the video on the 2 lamps for Exercise 1, I was amazed by the animation of the lamps which was so well done that it could deliver feelings and expressions. Hopefully, I will be able to achieve something like that for my Project 2 or at least something half as good.

IN3D Project 2 PART ONE: Weblog Journal Entries

Selected Scenario to Animate:

Scenario 2

The same as for scenario 1, the robot is busy stacking boxes. However, the robot seems tired of its work, as if unfulfilled in life. The robot wants to rebel and break free! Animate how the robot attempts to rebel – or at least to break the monotony and grind of its work for a short time. For example, does it go crazy and throw boxes around, or do a robot dance, or stack the boxes in some unusual way, or what?

1. Character

Robot Name: Robox

Brief paragraph of what the robot might be thinking while doing its mechanical work:

I’m sick and tired of stacking boxes in a straight column. Why can’t the company think of other patterns to stack them? I shall do something special to kill this boredom of mine!

2. Storyboard 

1. Robox is at the starting position, ready to start picking up boxes from the conveyor belt.
2. Robox has picked up a box and returns to the initial position.
3. Robox turns to his right side.
4. Robox drops the box before coming back up and returns to the initial position.
5. Robox repeats this for 2 more times and stacks the 3 boxes in a straight column.
6. Robox whines about his boredom (shows his tiredness) and decides to stack the following 6 boxes on his left side in a triangular form.
7. Robox returns back to the initial position and expresses his happiness with his work.

Storyboard for Project 2

Reflection

For the storyboard, the key poses which are the most important are Scene 6 and 7 because these are the scenes where Robox will express his feelings and mood. Due to this, it will be very challenging to animate Robox and more time would be needed for those 2 particular scenes to be animated well.

3. Self-Critique

For the animation, it is still missing things such as the expression in Scene 6 and also realism in the motion of Robox. The only things done for the animation is the 12 boxes and a last minute work of Scene 7 where Robox shows his happiness by moving his head attachment up and down.

 

In my animation, I have anticipation for Robox where he has a gearing-up action before he goes on to pick up a box. Overall, the majority of the animation meets closely to the storyboard above. However, I felt that it can be further improved. For a start, I could make the motions more realistic by putting in more effort in the graph editor and animating the reaction/feelings/expressions of Robox. After that, I could make use of cameras to further express the feelings of Robox to make the animation more dramatic.

Week 11 Lab 1: Animation - 3D

Exercise 1
Lesson 1: Keyframes and the Graph Editor
Link: http://download.autodesk.com/us/maya/2011help/index.html

Reflection
For the exercise, we are told to complete Lesson 1 from Maya Tutorials to learn about Keyframes and the Graph Editor in Maya. Overall, the exercise is simple and I managed to grasp the basics. I was introduced to the playback controls in Maya and I learned how to set keys for attributes and use the Graph Editor to edit the animation and remove unnecessary keys for the animation to run faster and more smoothly.

Exercise 2
For this exercise, we are told to animate a bouncing ball in Maya using what has been learned in Exercise 1.

Process

Bouncing ball with bounce distance issues

The distance between the ball should decrease after each bounce because the energy in the ball decreases after every bounce.

This is how it looks like after the changes are made:

Bouncing ball with bounce distance issues resolved

Reflection
When animating the bouncing ball for Exercise 2 in Maya, I found it challenging especially the process of editing the frames of the animation. I realized if I made some changes to one aspect of the animation, other aspects of the animation may also be altered especially those that are already done well. I learned that I need to be patient when doing animations because things will go haywire if I get frustrated.

Week 10 Lab 2: Moving Seaweed Using Pencil

During the 2nd lab lesson of Week 10, the class is asked to create an animation of a moving seaweed using 'Pencil'.

This is the video for the moving seaweed exercise I created:

I used vector layer for this exercise and used a green line to represent the seaweed.

Reflection
Again, I found it challenging to use the mouse to draw on 'Pencil' and that is why the lines look very jagged. Overall, the movement of the seaweed is there but I feel that it can be made to look more realistic if I just had more time.