I realized how late this post was... and I skipped the Pencil animation lab. Please pardon me on that.
Anyway, Pencil is a REALLY very basic 2D Animation program that allows you to just... learn very basic key framing. The steps in this tutorial (which I didn't have to refer to any of the tutorials) is very simple, CTRL+ I, press the + button to key frame it, rinse and repeat.
However, even the most simple programs has lessons to be learnt. These traditional key framing has been the bread and butter of today's animation techniques. Yes, we have advanced further by having graph editor and such, but it all boils down to key framing.
Due to not saving at intervals, I only can take screenshots from certain places and use the final model as an example as well.
In the above picture, I created a skeleton - joint and positioned it as such as shown above at the joints of the mechanical arms. After that, I created an IK Handle as shown as the brown line above.
If we leave the joint alone without attaching to the model, only the joint will move and not the actual model. Thus, what you see above is me selecting the object then shift click the joints at that location and pressing "P" to parent them. This is done for the rest of the whole object.
Next, we create a controller with a curve>circle and freeze the transformations. This circle will be the invisible controller of the robot (at that area). In the above image, the bigger circle controls the linear and vertical movement of the crane head while the smaller one controls the rotation. These are called constraints and...
This is how we create a constraint. I created a point constraint for the bigger circle and an orient for the circle one to move it linear-ly and rotate on the xyz axis respectively. From there, we are pretty much ready to go for the animation.
For the animation, I added keyframes on the controllers instead of the object itself. I also applied some principles of animation (e.g. slow in slow out when picking the crate) to make it look more realistic. See the video above.
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.
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 shows larger but slower movement when compared to the smaller lamp that does child-like movements such as leaping continuously, shaking its "butt" and stepping on it while the larger lamp observes more. (e.g. child does not think much of the consequences while adults tend to observe and analyze the situation) When the ball is deflated, the smaller lamp gets really sad while the larger lamp shakes its head. (Depicting an adult saying that "you caused this yourself" while the child is crying because he lost his favorite toy)
2) Give an example from Luxo Jr of how timing is used for comic effect. Explain how the timing decisions contribute to the humour.
When the first ball was deflated, the animation shows the smaller lamp being really sad, and this sets the mood from hyper to emotional, all the actions made by the smaller lamp seem to slow down. However, soon, the larger lamp displays a shock emotion and suddenly a larger ball flies by. This is an example on how timing can be used to make it funny. Another example is when larger lamp looks at the camera and then slowly looks down and shakes his head.
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.
A good example to explain would be a finger. Which is very similar to how the crane performs. If we do not have the joint near our knuckles, we would not be able to move the joint that allows us to bend our fingers into a "C" and if that joint is missing we wont be able to move our last joint near our fingernails.
Exercise 1: We were supposed to watch a 13 part video on youtube. But I've noticed that before this exercise I have already watched it.. I would say I was most interested in the bump-maps part and the lighting.
Exercise 2:
1)
The word "good" is ambiguous.
We do not need to have good drawing skills to develop good animation. But to have good drawing skills to develop smooth and lively scenes. Many people have said that digital art will still require traditional art techniques - and this statement is what I believe in. Therefore, even we have bad drawing skills, it is possible it develop a good animation but will be nowhere great or better than those who can draw well.
2)
No we do not. However, we must know the basis behind animation - a good example are the 12 animation principles. These techniques are required for a good 3D animation.
3)
Bad animations usually fall flat on the ground when it comes to memorability, aesthetics or unfitting in the particular scenario. For example, lets take the example of the ball bouncing, if we do not follow the slow in slow out principle, the ball will seem to be bouncing unrealistically(because in real life, gravity will make the ball fall to the ground faster than it going up). This is an example of a bad animation - it falls flat on aesthetics and be remembered for being a bad show.
4)
Yes. Frame by frame can be tedious at times, but it can be very precise on the other hand. Using the graph editor does help in 3D animation so we do not have edit each and every frame to make it smooth and pleasing to the eyes.
5)
Being only -so- much trained in Maya, I would have to say that Maya does make animation quite simple (just by pressing the s key we can set keyframes) however, the interface of Maya in its animation mode is not user friendly in searching for whatever I need (in the case of particles, collisions etc.. I could easily find it in 3DSMax) Other than that, I think Maya does a good job in making rigging quite simple.
I created the sphere and follow the instructions by grouping it twice and then locking out the specific functions that we do not need to edit.
After that, for the animation, I followed the table given to me and got a decent bouncing animation.
Keyframe No.
Translate X
Translate Y
1
-12
5
12
-9
0.5 (ground)
25
-6.1
3.9
37
-3
0.5
50
-0.2
2.8
62
2.7
0.5
75
6
1.6
87
8.8
0.5
100
12
0.5
However, the bounces will not look realistic without setting the tangents to linear. (Done in the previous lab, thus no screenshot)
Here, I set my keyframes at intervals and changed the factor value to mimic the squash and stretch.
In the video, as you can see, I didn't emphasize the squash and stretch. But it is still fairly visible.
. : : Techniques/Reflection : : .
The techniques used to do this exercise has been mostly covered by previous exercises. But here, we learn how to lock attributes and use a deformer to mimic a rig on the ball.
Locking attributes are useful when you don't want any other value to change when you edit a specific object. I think that this will be useful when we start to do more complex animations. I don't really see the point using this feature when we do a simple animation though.
Deformer in this case is useful so that we don't have to manually scale the ball (or flatten it) manually which can result in uneven and inconsistent squashes and stretches.
After creating the polygonal plane, cube and sphere, I aligned the ball at the to the right as shown above and set the keyframe to 0 and pressed S to add the keyframe.
Next, I aligned the ball above the polygonal cube and added a keyframe at intervals of 20. (0 - 20 - 40 - 60 etc)
Next, I added another keyframe at the location above.
I made the ball 'jump' slightly before ending.
Using the graph editor, I set the tangent to linear so that it looks more realistic when it bounces.
We must not forget to set the playback speed to realtime 24fps or else the ball will bounce extremely fast.
Lastly, to record the video, I had to select playblast.
Here is the result of the ball bouncing
Exercise 2:
Add a keyframe at 0 at that position Change the position to mimic the ball bouncing a certain distance and add another keyframe at 15. (15 intervals) Add a keyframe at 30 at the location shown above to mimic the ball bouncing back up and following the principles of animation, the ball cannot bounce higher than its original drop height (unless a force acts upon it) At keyframe 45, I set the ball to this location. This few steps are repeated to form several arcs where the ball will follow. I set the graph to linear so that it looks more like real life.
I've learned how to use, set , delete, copy and duplicate keyframes which will benefit me when doing animation work. I also learned how to use the graph editor to manipulate the curves to make the bounce look more realistic.
Furthermore, I also learned how important it is to set the FPS to realtime 24fps and learned about PAL, NTSC FPS as well.
At first, I did not know how to take a footage of the animation, but with the playblast, we can easily record these animations and post our results here.
Now I know how important our first lab was - the principles of animation plays a very large role in developing smooth animation (like the ball dropping) and how to follow the law of gravity.
1. Anticipation Using the first clip (With the girl jumping) as an example that clearly represents this principle of anticipation as she bends down and prepares to jump in the air. Another example is at the boy at the end of the video shooting the basketball, notice that how he bends and takes aim to score the ball - this is also anticipation.
2. Staging Using the second clip (where the girl is running towards the camera) it clearly emphasizes this principle of staging where the audience attention is focued towards the girl running instead of anywhere in the background. Also, the next clip following that is another view of the girl running but captured at a different view. Notice that the camera pans and follows the girls movements which also is the center of the audience attention and is therefore acting upon the staging principle
3. Straight ahead action and pose to pose Straight ahead action can be refered to any part of this video at all. As the Staging is usually one object only and never focused on the surroundings. However, a good example of pose-to-pose is the boy doing a robot dance where the frames can be done using keyframes instead of straight ahead action.
4. Follow through and overlapping action Using the clip where a boy punches another boy, notice that the follow through and overlapping action is shown by the fling of the hair by both boys when a large action is executed.
5.Slow in and slow out This is clearly shown in the clip where the boy is jumping at the waller, the camera starts of slow and pans in fast to the main character ( also another good example of Staging ).
6. Arcs A clear example of arcs is when the two boys are playing pass-ball in the video. The ball moves in a parabola shape.
7.Secondary action Using the clip where a boy punches the other boy, notice that the secondary action is the fist raising which signifies anger.
8. Timing Using the clip where the ball was thrown up and left to bounce on the floor, the timing principle comes into play when the law of gravity acts upon the ball and makes it decend to the ground. The timing of the ball going up and then going down should not be equal as the ball should fall faster then it going up assuming that the strength used to push the ball up is constant.
9. Exaggeration This is quite similar to No. 7, using the same clip, when the boy punches the other boy in the stomach, notice that the boy punching throws his fists in the air before landing the hit to the other boy. And following that, notice that the boy being punched flies back and hits the wall, this is also the act of exaggeration to show how deadly the punch is.
10. Solid drawing Though hard to express because this is not an animated video, an example showing the ball bouncing can be a good example showing how the volume and weight of the ball is balanced and tied into the gravity of the world.
11. Appeal Using the second clip ( where the girl is running towards the camera ) notice the appearance on her face which shows the seriousness/grave of the situation which adds to the general appeal to the audience.
Exercise 3:
1. Anticipation The elf at the start standing at the top of the cliff jumped off the cliff ( which people anticipated her to do). And the clip shows her grabbing the two swords before taking the stance to run and jump is also part of the anticipation principle.
2. Staging The video shows the characters drawn very distinctly from the minions and the main protagonist and the antagonists (brightly coloured vs dull/dark coloured).
3.Follow through and overlapping action When the camera zooms into the face of the character, it shows how the hair sways with the wind.
4.Slow in and slow out This video shows plenty of slow in slow outs. Using the part where the elf jumps off the cliff, the video slows down to show the emphasis on the how powerful the jump was.
5. Arcs When the two elves were fighting, the light-elf(blonde hair) jumped into the air along a parabola and sliced at the dark elf.
6. Secondary action When the camera zoomed into the dark elf's face, we could see that she have a crooked smile (expression) which is a secondary action.
7. Appeal As stated above, the main villains and the protagonists can be easily defined as dull coloured and bright coloured respectively.
