INTRODUCTION TO 3D (Tai Heng's 3D blog): August 2011

Sunday, 21 August 2011

Project 2 (Self-Critique)

Honestly, all in all, i feel that my animation isn't well done enough. First of all, i feel that the syncing with music in timing needs some work. Also, the motions for my crane and boxes are rather simple and not that realistic. For example, the way my box bounce and jumps out is a little bit unreal and needs to be improved by adding some momentum build-up motion following the jump.
For other improvements, they could be the texture and reflection of the entire animation, so that it looks more professional. Lights and a background could really pimp up my animation as well, so that would be something i could have done to improve my work.

Anticipation is applied in my animation for the part where Falcrane holds his head down. This is because people will be curious of what he is doing and what he is going to do next.

Staging is also applied as well in the same part of Falcrane holding his head down. This shows that he is very tired and bored as well.

Arcs is applied due to the crane's movement of picking up the boxes and putting them down.

Secondary actions is applied in the part where Falcrane starts heaving up and down to support his notion of being tired and bored.

Timing is applied in the part of the dance, because Falcrane hits all the beats of the music.

Exaggeration is applied during the robot dance because of Falcrane's unrealistic movements.

Appeal might be applied too, because Falcrane's personality is so random and unpredictable as he just dances suddenly while being tired/bored just a moment ago.

Sunday, 7 August 2011

Project 2 (Storyboard)

Saturday, 6 August 2011

Project 2 (Character)

The robot's name is Falcrane.
His thoughts: "Damn.. It's so boring being a robot crane doing all this lifting. Whoever even knows what are these boxes and where are they going. I need a break man and staring at these boxes ain't gonna help me. Hmm.. Maybe i should do something interesting..."

Chosen Scenario: Scenario 2: The robot is tired and bored, hence he tries something new!

Friday, 5 August 2011

Week 13: Robot Arm Rigging

Reflection: This exercise has clearly shown us how powerful joints and IK constraints are. Just by putting certain constraints, the movement of certain objects can be shown so clearly and realistically. Indeed it is a powerful tool. Also, not to mention parenting constraints can be a pain in the ass if done wrongly, because it affects the entire model when putting the keyframes. Thus, one must be careful when handling the constraints.

Research (Rigid Dynamics)

Research (Human IK)

Research (Substance)

Research (Dynamic Simulations)

Research (Rendering)

Wednesday, 3 August 2011

Week 12: Production workflow exercise

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

In my opinion, not really in 2D animation. This is because from what i have seen in the 2D animation world, most of the animation are either cartoon or flash animations. And with cartoons come the style of exaggeration. And in this case, the characters usually look unrealistic and so, i feel that drawing well is not really necessary. However, it is very important to have a creative mind that can picture out the characters well even without drawing it out.

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

On the other hand, i feel that this is a yes and a no. This is because not everyone can picture out the 3D view. And so, if a person is able to draw well, that person is usually good in picturing out the 3D image. However, this may not be true for all cases. And so, it is not surprising that someone who is not good at drawing is good in 3D animation. Because drawing and using tools like MAYA are two different things. There is no doubt that there is some advantage in having good drawing skills, but it is possible to succeed in creating good 3D animation even without good drawing skills because the technology and programs now are so advanced that they might even replace hand-drawn paintings one day.

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?

Poor animation - Easily seen through as obvious unintended movements are made.

Good animation - Not a single movement and action is wasted in the animation.

Personally, the animation has to appeal to me. This might be biased but it's really based on user preferences and how broad their conception is. Because a sloppy animation might be so inspiring for good animators because they unintentionally thought of what great things they could do with that sloppy animation and further improve it. Also, i believe that a good animation allows people to know what is going on every second and moment.

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.

Yes, it affects a little. However, graphs and keyframes are still the same thing pretty much, just that using graphs might be a little more confusing. But in the long run, it pays off well due to more realistic animation being produced at the end. For me, i find frame by frame tedious but easy. But graphs on the hand is a little challenging but less tedious once we get the hang of it. And so, taking 3D animation will make me think 3 or 4 steps more before executing because every single action might ruin or improve the work.

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 in my opinion is a great animation tool. It has already been proven by filmmakers who claim that it is the best animation software available. Movies like Avatar also proved that point as well. However, this is only true for the veterans. For amateurs, there is no way they can get started unless someone is there to guide them on the Maya software itself. And so, i would like to say that Maya is not user friendly for newbies at all. However, it is a powerful tool for veterans.

Week 12: 3D Bouncing Ball

Reflection: This exercise has taught me that it is not that hard to create a realistic background and surrounding in Maya by using real images and some lighting. Also, i have learned from the bouncing ball exercise that it is important to picture and imagine how the ball will bounce in real life, then we try to make a realistic copy of the motion in Maya. By doing this, we can achieve realistic modelling and animation and make it more enjoyable to watch as well.

Monday, 1 August 2011

Week 11: 3D bouncing ball maya

Reflection: This exercise has taught me how to make a bouncing ball look realistic through the use of graphs. The graphs sort of act like the gravity and hence, making the ball movements realistic. This is because just by adding the keyframes for animation will not be able to make the animation itself realistic enough. This is when the use of graphs comes to play. With the tangent graphs, gravity-like motions can be created and achieved.