IN3D_Last_Project (Process & Self-Critique)

Process for my animation!

The first very important thing to start of this animation was to allow the robotarm to pick up the box! So I did a parent constraint from the armcontrol to the box and set it to 1 to allow the box to be picked up.

This graph editor shows the graph of the box when it's moving. This is the part for the first box, I've edited the gradients of the graph to allow an ease in and ease out for the box, this is to allow the box to come to a stop slowly instead of coming to a stop immediately.

In this frame, I'm trying to show that the base doesn't rotate at where the box is going to be putted down. The base rotates a little further and later rotates back to the original position. This is to allow the robotarm to have a jerk feeling, because of the heavy box that it's holding, when it rotates it can't possibly come to a stop immediately so I allowed the base to rotate a little more to allow that "jerk" movement.

 In this frame, I applied the squash and stretch effect on the box to show that after the box is being placed on the platform, there is a volume and to show the box is heavy.

 In this frame, whenever the armcontrol lifts up a box the robotarm will move up and down a bit to show that the box that the robotarm just picked up has a heavy weight.

In this frame, I'm trying to show that the robotarm is trying to shake off the box but it's still attached to it. I did this by applying constraint towards ikhandle, because I can't apply to joint4 and it doesn't work, so I had to apply to ikhandle instead of joint4.

In this frame, when the robotarm got pissed, instead of trying to shake off the box, he is trying to break the box instead shaking it off! I applied squash and stretch here to make it feels like the robotarm is really trying it's best to break the box.

 In this frame, I made the box and robotarm move according when the robotarm is spinning, to allow the follow through effect so that the animation won't look so stiff. I rotated ikhandle and the armcontrol to allow this movement throughout the spinning animation. I also made the swing more realistic by adjusting the height of the armcontrol at certain frames to make it look like the swing is getting higher and higher.

In this frame, it shows the robotarm finally got rid of the box and the box is now being fling away. I did some rotation on the box so that the box doesn't just flies away in a certain position, it actually rotates while it's "flying" away.

This graph editor shows the gradient of the base being rotated. This is the part when the robotarm swings at a super high speed to shake off the box. The gradient is being edited to such that the swinging speed is gaining speed as it turns around.

Self-Critique

Firstly, at the start of the animation when the box starts moving in and the robotarm starts following the box, the speed of the animation could be faster as I could key at an earlier frame. I tried editing to make it look faster but the there were too many to edit at the end of the animation and there might be some errors and difficultly. Therefore the speed at the start of the animation should be faster so that the animation will look a lot smoother.

Secondly, at 0.05 - 0.06 when the base started to rotate, I should have animated the follow through movement for the box by rotating it to the side. However looking at the joints of the robotarm I find it logically impossible to do that as the joints don't allow me to have that follow through movement. It only allows the armcontrol to rotate front and back but not to the side. Although my entire animation I did rotate the armcontrol to allow that follow through movement.

Thirdly, 0.07 - 0.08 when the robotarm finished placing the box it rotates too quickly back to the position to start picking up the box. I took into consideration that after releasing that heavy box, the robotarm can rotate at a much faster speed back to the original position but i made a mistake by rotating it back too fast.

Fourthly, 0.16 - 0.17 when the robotarm was shaking the box front and backwards, I did not animate it shaking left to right because of the joints of the robot, in terms of polygon structure. If you look closely at the model, it is only logically possible to rotate front and backwards. That's the reason I didn't animate it shaking it left and right, even though animating that would make it more realistic. I took in consideration of the actual model and the type of movement it is able to do before animating it.

Fifthly, at 0.22 - 0.28 when the robotarm is swinging I did the follow through for the box when it's spinning, I did the follow through effect here to make it looks exaggerating.

Lastly, I couldn't finish animating the last few frames of my animation to allow the robotarm to pick up the last box and stack it on the first box because of some technical issues with my armcontrol. I can't seem to move my armcontrol after frame 671 in maya. Which is after the robotarm threw the box away, I tried solving but the error seems to be unsolvable.

IN3D_Last_Project (Character)

The name of my robot will be called: kiddOs
kiddOs is a hardworking robot who really loves to work hard.  The more work he gets, the happier he is! However, he encountered a really strange box that doesn't allows him to put it down! Rushing to finish his work, he struggles to free itself from the box by swing it around, smashing it on the ground.

Some of kiddOs thoughts:
- "I have to keep working!"
- "I must not make any mistakes!"
- "What is with this box? Why can't I put it down?"
- "Arhhh! I need to finish my job!" *Struggles, swings, smash the box*
- "Finally the box is gone, time to carry on stacking more boxes!"

Storyboard

12 Animation Principles (Research)

Extracted from: http://www.rizawerks.com/how/12principles/12%20principles.htm

Anticipation

Arcs

Exaggeration

Follow through

Personality

Secondary action

Slow in Slow out

Squash and stretch

Staging (part 1)

Staging (part 2)

Straight Ahead Pose to Pose (part 1)

Straight Ahead Pose to Pose (part 2)

Straight Ahead Pose to Pose (part 3)

Timing (heavy)

Timing (light)

Reflection:

I downloaded the videos and stored them in a folder for future purposes, I find them easy to understand and therefore, I uploaded these videos for me to refer to whenever I want to.

Week 13 Animation

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).

    

The bigger lamp wasn't interested in playing with the ball as he "pushed" the ball back to where it came from. This shows that the lamp is "matured" in a way, and it doesn't wants to play with the ball.

Secondly, when Luxo Jr was playing with the ball, the "older" lamp would just sit there and watch at Luxo Jr play. Showing that he has no interest in the ball. Showing his level of maturity.

Lastly, at the part when the ball was squashed by Luxo Jr. Luxo Jr looked at Luxo the "older" lamp telling him that the ball was squashed and Luxo nodded his head. In real life, when the kid does something wrong, he will approach his parents, same as how Luxo Jr approached his dad in the video.

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 part when Luxo Jr was preparing for a jump onto the ball, when he was "warming" himself up for a jump.

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 top joint is the parent node, and anything below the parent node are the children nodes. They follow what the parent node does. When creating a joint chain, the parent node will be the "controller" which means that, moving the parent node will also move the children nodes.

Reflection

This mecharm exercise is easy to do as the instructions on Maya online help was very detailed and specific. However, if we were asked to do this on our own, I would think that this exercise would be a killer. This exercise will definitely help me on my project! Because it's quite similar to this exercise based on the scenarios that were given.

Week 12

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

To be honest, one must be able to draw well to create a good 2D animation. Why? 2D animation is normally hand drawn, and they do really need to be at least appealing to attract viewers. A well drawn 2D animation can be really nice to watch, however a badly hand drawn but has a meaning in it can be also appealing to watch.

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

Nope! 3D animations are made by softwares like Maya. They do not require drawing at all, as everything is done from the computer. However, the person that is animating must have at least know how a good drawing looks like. What I meant was, imagine a guy that doesn't know what a good piece of art looks like, and he does animation. For example, he might be making a dog animation. He has the dog eyes placed at different parts of the body.

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?

A piece of good animation is an animation that is properly drawn and animated. Meaning that the lighting and the flow of the animation must be smooth. The animation should then be accompanied with a nice audio that suits the animation. A good animation allows it's audience to stay watch it throughout the whole video without feeling bored.
A bad piece of animation will be the opposite of what a good piece of animation will be like. Meaning that the flow of the animation isn't properly framed, the audio doesn't fit into the animation and audience get bored by watching it.

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.

Timing at a frame by frame level in 2D animation is important as we don't have a graph editor, but for 3D animation, there is a graph editor for us to edit the frames in between. This does not affect on how I approach my animation work because for 2D and 3D animation, I plan my frames carefully. The graph editor is only used if the animation turns out weird. The graph editor works as a backup so that we don't have to do the frames again.

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 a great tool to use for animation, however if we newbies/beginners are new to Maya. Working with Maya can be tough. Tough in terms on finding the correct tools to use for animation. Sometimes, you can do your project halfway and because of all the shortcut keys and sometimes you tend to press the wrong button and some table might appear and you can't view your original project because of that new table popping out. Or another example would be, by moving the camera angle would be by pressing the ALT button. Sometimes I tend to press spacebar instead of ALT and ended up in another panel view. I had problems with changing it back last time as I was new to Maya. Now that I've used Maya more frequently, errors like that can be solved easily. However there are sometimes where you can't find the tool that you're looking for because of the number of functions and tools Maya has. It's really confusing when it comes to searching for tools.

Week 11 Lab 1, Lab 2

Bouncing ball from Maya

Reflection
Following the instructions from Maya help online is really easy and I can easily finish doing this task really fast. I find that posting the process of this video is not really appropriate as the online document already have the steps clearly shown there. Overall, I find this exercise really interesting as I get to animate in Maya.

Before applying squash and stretch to the ball.

After applying squash and stretch to the ball!

Process:

Firstly, I created a sphere and later on group it up. Translate and rotate groups to control the movement of the ball.

Secondly, I set the keyframes for the ball to bounce. (Animating it)

Thirdly, I edited the animation graph to give the ball a more natural bounce.

Forth, I gave the ball a texture to show the rotation done on the ball.

Lastly, I added the squash and stretch effect on the ball. I set the keyframes for the ball to stretch and squash when the ball is bouncing off the surface, I gave a stretch effect and the squash effect when the ball hits the ground.

Beach ball

Reflection
I find this exercise quite easy to do, as instructions were that were given are clear and straight forward. I had problems with setting the squash and stretch effect for the keyframes but I recalled about some tutorials I did in class and I completed my animation. Even though the video isn't really that realistic, but It is already the best that I could do!



1) Why is squash and stretch so useful in animation?
This technique helps enhance the animation. It makes an object or a character more realistic. So that we don't find it boring to watch the animation.
Squash and stretch creates the illusion that the character/object which is animated a "lively" look.

2) Think of a situation in which extreme squash and stretch could be applied to a character - try to be original.
A basketball player that is attempting a slam-dunk action. He runs at a constant speed and before he could jump, he bends down real low to allow him to jump at a higher height. After releasing his energy from his legs, he lunges himself high up stretching his body and hands as far as possible so that he could perform the slam-dunk action.

3) Think of an animation example where squash and stretch would NOT be appropriate
A bowling ball rolling down the bowling alley. The object is hard and when it is being thrown down the alley, the ball doesn't really bounces off the alley as the ball is heavy and therefore no squash and stretch is added to the ball.

4) If squash and stretch doesn't really happen so obviously in real life, why do you think is it so effective in animation?
  In animations, the effect of squash and stretch is to give the audience an "illusion of life". So that the characters stimulates real life, and which it makes the animation lively.

Week 10 Lab 1, 2

 

This video shows anticipation, when Shiyi is squatting, it shows that he is ready for a jump.

 

This video shows the slow out slow in principle. There is a lot of frames at the start and the end, in the middle of the video it's just running so the frames will be lesser as it is just the (running) frames.

This video shows the principle appeal, after the chicken dance, Shiyi shows a funny face.

This video shows the principle of the squash and stretch of the ball, even though we can't see it, but the exercise we did recently shows us that when a ball hits the ground, it will be squashed and when it bounces back up, it will stretch.

This video shows the principle exaggeration where Shiyi tried to fake Yuyang that he's going to throw the ball at him.

Jumping~

Squash and stretch from 0.02 - 0.06
Where Blu is putting the glasses on for the girl and when the girl tickles Blu. It shows a squash and stretch effect on Blu's body. Blu is the blue bird.

Appeal 0.42 - 0.43
The bird looks appealing to watch as the background is glowing and it shows how beautiful that bird is.

Follow through 0.12 - 0.15
When Blu is riding on the toy car, he follows the action and the position of where the car is facing. When the car is turning right, his head and his body folllows the flow by moving it to the right.

Anticipation 0.49 - 1.01
When the disco ball is let down into the screen, the audience is going to know that a music is going to play soon.

Slow in Slow out 1.11 - 1.12
When both of the bird is falling, they fall into the box and after that popping their heads out.

Staging 1.37-1.38
It shows the ass of the female and soon later they "smashed" into it.
Staging 2.11
The "cutting machine". Not sure what is the real name of that machine

Secondary Action 0.34
When the monkey dance, his hands and his legs are moving at the same time.

Exaggeration 1.57 - 1.58
When the bird scares the human, he is in a very big shock.

Arcs 0.17 - 0.18
The friendship punch they did had a natural feel.

Week 10 Lab 1, 2

Bouncing ball:



Exercise 1:
Bowling ball:

Process:
At the start, I created the image of the bowling ball, after on I drew another ball which was sightly below the original position in fame 1.

At fame 3 the distance between the ball in fame 2 and fame 3 will be quite huge because this is to show that the ball gained speed while falling.

Later on, I drew the bounce frames to show the ball bounced a bit after hitting the ground.

At the last few frames which was the rolling of the ball. I drew the frames of the ball at end closer and closer to one another, to show the ball coming to a stop slowly.

Rocket:

Process:
At frame 1, the human was boarding the spaceship. Soon later the ship had it's ladder out for the human to enter.

I drew the extension of the ladders bit by bit each frame so that when I animate it, it looks like the spaceship is showing how the ladder came out. Not just appearing at the next frame.

Soon later I drew the take off with the "smoke" effects and also before it reaches the moon, the distance of the moon and the spaceship were considered.

As the spaceship approaches the moon, the moon becomes bigger.

Exercise 2:

What is ease-in ease-out in reference to animation?
Ease in starts slow motion and ends it with a faster speed when is near the end of it’s motion. Ease out starts the fast motion and then slow down as it comes to the end of it’s motion.

What does frames-per-second mean?
It means the number of frames(pictures) that is shown per-second.
If the FPS is 60, it means 60pictures were shown during the process.
In 1min, there will be 60x60 = 360frames shown!

Reflections:

All this exercise made me understand how animation is all about, and I realised that creating animation maybe boring but after you finished it. The hardwork and the effort you putted in while doing your work is relieved.

Self Critique

Front View

 Side View

 

 Top View

Persp View

Basically, I modeled an Elekid. Elekid is a pokemon, a baby pokemon before Electabuzz.

Looking at those photos, the top, side and the front view were 90% similar to the photos. 

Firstly, the horn that the Elekid had in the model was beveled at the sides but for my model, my horn is not beveled. After beveling the side, the holes in the horns are covered up. That's something that I couldn't fix and I can't google the solution for it. I would rather complete the model to look exactly like the actual one, rather then bevel it and there is no holes in the horn.

Secondly, his hands are not the same as the model. It looks a little squarish not 100% round. It is because I didn't model the hand from a cylinder, I modeled it from a cube and slowly adjusting the vertex to make it look like the model.

Thirdly, his legs are not the same as the one as my model. The closest that I could make was this. It was as close comparing to all my previous attempt.

Finally, in conclusion, the overall project was similar to the actual model and I can conclude that this project has greatly helped me a lot in exploring maya and use it's tools in an efficient manner.

IN3D Reflection

I feel that IN3D is an interesting subject, I would prefer Maya over programming because programming is so much harder, so many things to remember. For Maya, all you have to know is understand how each tool works and how to apply them on your object.
Learning Maya is easier to understand than learning programming.
I feel that Maya is so much "funnier" than programming, because there is an object there for you to see, after modeling it you will feel that "aww, it's so nice". As for programming, after typing out a line of codes, and you run the program.. Several lines of word appears on a black screen.

Research on Maya (6)

Another video showing the extruding tool, but with an additional function. By looking at all these videos, doing my project now should be easier as I know more about Maya and it's function.

Research on Maya (5)

This video shows how the extruding tool can do. Knowing how he can use the extruding tool to create an object out of another can save the file space of my project work.

Research on Maya (4)

Hand Modeling (Reference while doing my Elekid's hand)

I couldn't embed this video due to some bad request sent to the server.
This video showed me how a simple object can be used to extruded to into a complex object. It also shows me how a simple rectangle can be transformed into a "hand".

Research on Maya (3)

There are 5parts to this video, after watching all the parts. I find Maya a little bit more easy to handle and to use it. If I didn't watch this video, I will be still referring to those PDF files finding where and which tools to use.

Research on Maya (2)

After watching this video, I find it very useful in modeling my toy. Things just got so much easier, process of modeling my toy has also speed up a lot.

Research on Maya (1)

Reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXI2gIgjffI

This clip is very helpful in teaching how I can use mirror geometry in Maya, it saves me a lot of time trying to do the other side of my object. I used this technique on my primitive robot project. I do not have to waste my try creating another set of hands and legs for my robot anymore!

Project 1

Story:

The toy that I have selected is Elekid! The yellow cute little pokemon! 

Elekid is always fond of racing, he likes to race in his yellow race kart, he has never lost a race before and so as soon as he heard about a race, he would definitely sign up for it!

Learning that there is a rat racing on a track with his mousetrap car, Elekid became so excited. He then took his yellow race kart and when on to the racing track facing his opponent the rat! 

The race begins..

 Shape:

Number of primitive parts: 6 (Hands, Legs and the head portion)
Technical aspects: (Almost everything that I've learnt, I will try to apply them all) E.g. Extrusion, bevelling, boolean, etc.

Design:

I guess this is how Wiremesh frame of my Elekid looks like? I have no experience in drawing wiremesh frames because I didn't learn it before. I guess this is the best that I could do! 

Will try to improve more if there was at least a tutorial on wiremesh drawing!

Week 4 Lab 1 (E-Learning)

Does multi-tasking give you a real or false sense of having accomplished something?

From my point of view, multi-tasking give me a false sense of having something accomplished. I’ve tried studying with my earpiece in my ears, blasting music. All that went into my head after an hour of study was the music. I could hardly remember anything that I studied. However, if I was studying with the music blasting from the speakers, I can remember the content of what I’m studying after an hour.

Is learning 3D and design different from learning programming, or is all the learning the same? Why?

Learning 3D and design and learning programming is two different things. Learning 3D requires you to think in 3D, thinking about all the designs and stuff. For programming, thinking of how to code works with each other is different from designing.

The learning progress of 3D and programming is the same, it requires us to practice and practice. We can’t memorize and then just pit it out during exams. Another example would be playing games. We can’t just play the game and expect us to be good at it. Practice makes perfect. However no one is perfect at doing anything.

The article states that “Learning is actually a very complex operation for an individual”. Do you agree with this? Do you feel that you approach your learning in the best way = if yes, how, and if no, how can you change your work style?

Yes, I agree with the article. 

My way of learning is not the best way, because I always procrastinate. Even if I don’t and I focus on doing my work, I can’t get good grades. I guess I’ve to keep trying and trying until I get better.

What are your thoughts about the last paragraph in the extract?

Law students not studying and playing freecell in class? I’m not really sure that they should even do that. If they can get into the law course by just playing freecell, why can’t we just play games in class and get into a game company to be a game designer or a programmer? 

Should your lecturers also focus on your work attitude, or just leave you to sink or swin on your own? Why?

Lecturers can make the lessons interesting to attract the student’s attention so that we can pay attention in class. If a particular student doesn’t wants to participate in class activities, then lecturers should not help him/her at all. Since he/she doesn’t want to learn anything. However, if a student is slow at work, or is lagging behind and the lecturers find out. He should consult the student to see if he needs help or not.

Week 3 Lab 2 (Vase)

Process:
 Doing this vase was simple. All I did was just drawing the layout of the vase and used the revolving tool. After using that tool, this vase was formed. It looked weird at first, the base was a little too sharp so I edited it by just moving the vertex and scaling it. 

Reflection:

I just did a simple vase by just drawing it with create CV and by revolving it.

I'm sure it looks like a vase!