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▼ WEEK 13
Thursday 24 January 2013

 Mech Arm Animation

Click on the hyperlink to view the videos.

Mech Arm Animation 1
Mech Arm Animation 2


Here are some screen shots of the processes that I have gone through in creating this Mech Arm animation. Step by step instructions were followed accordingly and closely with the help of Maya guide. It is quite easy to follow plus the Mech Arm model is already ready designed for us. I just have to understand how each and every steps affects the movement and reactions of the arm.

I learnt about skeleton joints where it allows the Mech Arm to bends, behaving like how mechanical robot bending supposed to be like. I also learnt about how important is the order of parenting which shows it thus have a the difference of which is the child and which is to be the parent. I were thought about the use of "Locator" and "Annotation" too. The locator is to help in manipulating the IK System, instead of using itself. This is also useful because they don't appear in the rendered image.

Functions like constrain > point and constrain > orient are new to me thus I get to learn how they work too. A point constrain is where another object can control another object's transformation attributes of an object.


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 that 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).

 Answer: 
Firstly, the speed of the "older" lamp is slower and the "younger" one is faster and more energetic in his moves. The "older" one also have a slow reaction and doesn't move around a lot compared to the "younger" one which kept running around while playing with the balls.

 Secondly, the "older" lamp does not have much expression as the "younger" lamp as the "younger" lamp shows his expressions showed that he gets excited playing and going after the ball while the "older" lamp just stays stationary.

 Thirdly, the "younger" lamp also jumps a lot while playing with the ball while the "older" one just pushed it once with lesser energy away from him.

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

One example will be the part the "younger" lamp feeling happy playing the ball by showing that he shakes his back. The timing for that is very fast that makes it cute and funny at the same time.

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.

Whatever joints that is at the top of the hierarchy, anything that are parented to it will go through the "follow through and overlapping" principle. Thus this is necessary for the joints to work properly of showing more natural motion of the characters.



▼ WEEK 12

 Bouncing Beach Ball

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Bouncing Beach Ball


Bouncing Beach Ball is similar to the bouncing balls practices I did, however this is more complex and more steps to be done. Also adding the ground texture to an image of a wooden planks and adding image bump.


Exercise 2

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

I think I need to and I do not need to, to a certain extend. We need to have good drawing skills to a certain extend because whatever is drawn must be understandable to viewers and it may be misleading too if it does not look good and look like something else. I also think we do not need to because cartoons animations are all not really the same as reality and can still be understood. Some may not look very nice and only based on their imaginations so I think it is okay to just draw according to our animations as long as it is comprehensive.

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

I think for 3D is quite a need to have good drawing skills because it can be very misleading if your drawing is not comprehensive. If only 2D drawings is not very comprehensive, I think it will be worst to attempt on adding details to make it 3D. 

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?

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 of how you approach your animation work? Explain.

Yes it does affect and I have to be aware of it. This is because the timings of the animation affects the realistically of the animation. If I did not handle the graph editor well, the animation I make may not look real. It will look funny for example, the bouncing balls exercise. Most of them end up like they're floating above the ground instead of bouncing on them.

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 think Maya animation tool is quite effective in creating animation in terms of making it look more realistic since its a 3D model, it makes use of the animation principle that allow it look real. It will make animation more interesting by doing animation in Maya. As for not so well part of creating animation in Maya is that there are a lot more tool to handle, need to remember important steps to be taken. If not, we might have to redo it. 


▼ WEEK 11

 Bouncing Ball

Click on the hyperlink to view the videos.
  • 3D tennis ball (from Maya Help)  e-learning week exercise – 2 animated clips (playblast version)

  • 3D bouncing ball with stretch and squash effect (playblast version) -VIDEO

This exercise allows me to learn how animations can animate as natural as reality. This is also the first animation principle I got to know which is Squash and Stretch principle. This is to show there's gravity pull acting on the ball by showing it stretches after it bounces off the ground. It then shows that it is squashed on the ground showing the impact, similarly as reality. 
This is an example video of how Squash&Stretch 
makes a different in animation: Brave Blue




▼ WEEK 6
Wednesday 16 January 2013

Toy Room.



This is my Toy Room, filled with different types of toys that I have modeled. The second picture also shows the hypershade of the toy room as you can see there is quite a number of colour texture for the toys in the room. I have to firstly create the room by just simply creating using a Polygon > the cube. I then just add new material for the colour of the room. As for the shadows and light, I insert a point light and the shadow function thus making it look more realistic.


▼WEEK 5

Ticket Booth.




Through this practical, I learnt that Photoshop can also be useful for Maya. It is interesting that we can design our own booth by choosing any theme we want and then render it having a quite nice outcome. This is easier in designing our model rather than modeling in Maya software. Plus it also allows more design graphics. It uses UV Texture Mapping Tool function to carry out this practical.


▼ Week 12 E-Learning
Monday 14 January 2013

▼Week 12 E-Learning

 1) Why is squash and stretch so useful in animation?
It is very useful because it makes the effect on the object look more realistic and smooth. Squash and stretch can also be used to convey differences between the mass of the objects. For example the bouncing ball, if we just make it bounce without having it squash and stretch it will not look very real.

 2) Think of a situation which extreme squash and stretch could be applied to a character - try to be original.
The situation I can think of is water or rain drops, where it will squash to the ground and bounce back having it to be stretched out to a different shape. 

 3) Think of an animation example where squash and stretch would NOT be appropriate.
The animation of a hard toy or anything that have a fix shape and size that cannot be changed. If they were to fall to the ground the size of it will be exactly the same, not changing to another shape.

 4) If squash and stretch doesn't really happen so obviously in real life, why do you think is it so effective in animation?
It is so effective in animation because it helps to show the difference of what is happening to the object. Having the object to be squashed shows that it is hitting on something or landed on the ground, showing there is a impact of force acting on the object. As for stretch, it shows that there is a gravity pull acting and putting a force to the object like showing it is falling from somewhere. 


▼ Project 1
Friday 4 January 2013




 





1.    Story 

The day has come for the annual racing day, racers gathered together to compete for the Piston Cup. Spectators are all looking forward for the two main strong racers – The Rat and Toy Bus. Soon the race begun and all racers raced competitively. However, the atmosphere turns serious when The Rat’s wheels burst giving a very loud explosion sound. The Rat suddenly gives a sudden break causing Toy Bus to bump with The Rat. Both of them ended up losing the race together causing a very slow Bob the tortoise to win the race and get the Piston Cup.

2.    Shape

I think the parts that will be difficult for me to do are the texturing for my model – a toy bus. The toy bus has quite a number of little details of dents on the sides of the bus. And also since normal vehicle, it contains four wheels, windows, bumpers and side mirrors etc. Therefore, for the wheels part, I will have to do a lot of duplicating which will be a little tedious plus arranging to its place too. I will need to insert edge loop tool for the windows of each side too. Bevelling will be done for the windows outlines and the shape of the bus to make it more realistic. I may need to use texture mapping tool for the texturing of number designs on the side of the bus too. I will need to Boolean difference for the gap between the wheels and the bus body and for the lips of the toy. I need to make a little curve for the front part of the bus too since it is not totally straight.

I think I will have to be extra careful and toggle around when selecting the faces/edges I want to extrude or bevel for the edges.

3.   Design 



4.   Research

I found this video of how to create a car model in Maya. I’ll focus more on how it started with – creating a plane to add new material of the picture he trying to achieve of his model. So as for my model, I will need to take the picture of the front and side part of my bus to be put on the plane for my guidance throughout modeling my bus. (Tutorial here)

Reading from just the Maya guide does not really show me how to do it well. Texture mapping is one of the parts of Maya that have been thought in class. We tried in on a shape that have the sides lay out nicely but as for my toy, I just need it on a certain part. So I research on how to do texture mapping too but most of the research results teach on a cube which is a primitive shape, similarly with what was thought in class. To solve this problem, I think since I need to do in on a polygon, using plane will be the best solution for the numbering on the side of my bus. I can edit the picture in Photoshop and it will probably turn out fine.


5.   Self-Critique 








By the look of the model, it really resembles the real object to a certain extend. However, I think I am not very successful in the texturing of the little details of dents at the side of the toy. I tried Boolean difference it to make the dented look but it does not turn out very well as I realized my mistake of differencing the object too deep into the bus body. I only realized this when I did a lot of other things on the bus already. Other than that, I tried to use the “fill holes” tool but not very sure of why it didn’t work. Secondly, the lights, bumpers, eyes, nose and lips are perfectly fine and go with the colour of the object. I am not very successful on putting the design on the bus number at the top front part of the bus too, when I tried doing the same for the side of the bus.

My windows are not identical for both sides as I am sure something must have gone wrong somewhere when I was inserting the edge loop tool. This is because when I added new material to colour a certain part of the window, other unwanted parts were coloured too. I am sure to check and toggle around that other parts were not selected though. I also encounter having holes in between my windows when I beveled the parting of the windows. I tried making a little transparency for the colour of the windows too, but it was not successful when I am sure I went careless somewhere and cause the colour to be not changing. As for the wheels too, I didn’t manage to be very in detail of the little holes. But I managed to make a little effort to make the colour shading to be something similar.

I am proud to say if to look at the object itself, it really resembles the real object. That will be the part that is successfully done. I succeed the requirement of general appearance and that is the first requirement to be cleared. The front part of the toy is modeled in detailed as I think it is quite manageable to do. I managed to complete the model too only the partly minor ones are incomplete. I followed closely with the guidance of the requirements in order to score well. Though I am not very good in Maya, I believed I have tried my best and put in effort to complete this somewhat tedious subject.

Overall, I think generally the model is fine only the part of little details of texturing the side of the bus and one side of the windows are not very well done and completed.




▼Profile

▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼▼ Photobucket
▼Nurul Shafiqah Rahim.
▼Class: P02
▼Course: Interative Media Informatics.
▼Subject: Intoduction to 3D.
▼Tutor: Mr George Yam.

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