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.