IN3D

TENNIS BALL

This is the video of my tennis ball.

Through this lab, i've learned how to make 3D animation using maya. It's interesting since i've never done it before, not even using flash. The lecturer guide us slowly steps by steps, telling us how similar maya animation is comparing to flash.

Doing 3D animation is easy and simple as we can just click on the different objects, we can come up with different animation, besides, by inserting textures to these objects, it look more realistic. We can also use the graph editor of the object to edit the movement of our bouncing ball. The graph make the movement of the bouncing ball smoother and it is really easy to edit the graph. From this lesson, i've learned that it is really interesting by making a 3D animation by myself as well as i know that graphs aid on the movement of the bouncing ball really well.

BEACH BALL

This is the video of my beach ball. In this lesson, I've learned to create an animation with one of the principle of animation which is the squash and stretch.

WHAT IS SQUASH AND STRETCH??

Squash and Stretch was described in The Illusion of Life as being "by far the most important" discovery that the Disney animators made in their pursuit of excellence in animation.Only lifeless stiff objects remain inert while in motion. Any living object will tend to change shape, though retaining overall volume. One example is a flexed bicep, another is a human face - while talking or chewing it will tend to extend and compress.

^{cr: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squash_and_stretch}

^{From the above animation, i've learned that we can do the squash and stretched effect by adjusting the number of the "Factor"; however, by adjusting the "factor" of the squash effect, the number must be within 0 to 1. Numbers beyond this range, the animation made will be exaggerated.}

^{Before having to create a squash and stretch effect, i wasn't sure on how to do it. Hence, i searched some tutorial on it to find out how to do it.}

^{Here's the link to it:}

^{http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIxbouDiA2M}

^{And besides the above video, i've also found some tutorial online teaching us how to create squashed and stretched effect not only on balls but on other stuff. Below is the link for the site:}

^{>>>> http://www.pdipierro.com/tutorials/Stretch.html}

^{RESEARCH // REFLECTIONS}

^{1. Why is squash and stretch so useful in animation?}

^{The effects of the squash and stretch makes the animation more realistic to the real thing. Usually animation without any effects is like a dead thing, however, this effects make the animations more realistic. Besides, the squash and stretch is applied because it occur in real life too. And the squash and stretch is really important because without squash and stretch, the audience of the animation wouldn't think that the animation is real. And besides, we have no real sense of weight, mass or velocity in animated objects, and their animations would look unrealistic. Squash and stretch effects are there to convey differences between the mass of objects. As well as the action is useful when it comes to animating facial expressions.}

^{source: http://animation.about.com/od/faqs/f/Why-Is-Squash-And-Stretch-Important-To-Animation.htm}

^{2. Think of a situation in which extreme squash and stretch could be applied to a character}

^{We can use squash and stretch on a heavy object jumping from a high angle. For example, a hippopotamus jumping down to a river from a tree branch.}

^{1st scenario:}

A hippo is on a weak tree branch that keep swaying, and the hippo jumped down into a river from the tree. An exaggerating squash can be implemented when the hippo is jumping down.

Scenario 2:

The hippo stepped on springs accidentally and began to bounce along the way.

An exaggerating squash can be implemented when the hippo reach the ground with the springs and an exaggerating stretch when it began to bounce.

^{sources of images: i edited the picture myself in photoshop}

^{3. Think of an animation example where squash and stretch would not be appropriate}

^{When a car is driving, it is not appropriate to implement the squash and stretch effect as it would look weird and since it does not occur in real life.}

^{4. If squash and stretch doesn't really happen to obviously in real life, why do you think is it so effective in animation?}

^{The squash and stretch action is effective because it gives the illusion of weight and volume to a character as it moves. It allow people to imagine what the character is like through this squash and stretch actions. It can be used in all forms of character animation from a bouncing ball to the body weight of a person walking. It can be used in many different ways, the extreme of the squash and stretch is depend on the scenes.}

^{source: http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/aim/a_notes/anim_principles.html}

^{RESEARCH // REFLECTIONS}

^{1. Do you need to be able to draw well to create good 2D animation? Explain your view.//}

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

^{For an appropriate 2D animation, you do not have to draw really well, just look-able. However, if you want to compared it to a really well 2D animation, the person doing the animation have to draw really well in order to present his story to the audience even without the showing the storyboards. However, comparing to 3D animation, 3D animation, the person doing the animation does not need to draw very well as doing a 3D animation is simple. We can just create an animation through primitive shapes and wire frames. Hence, we do need to draw well in order to create a good 2D animation but not for 3D animation.}

^{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 good animation is able to convey the message that the animator wants to say, and it must include some of the principles of animation in their animation. Besides, a good animation must have a motion that looks smooth and the secondary movements (ie. hair and floppy clothing) to be more natural as well as the primary movements that fit in with the general feel of the character and context. The colour must not be too vibrant and it must looks nice at the animation. A bad animation's storyboard will not allow people to understand their storyline and besides, the motion of the animation does not flow smoothly. The quality of the animation will be very poor.}

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 by 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, the animation exaggeration changes due to the graph editor. For example, musicians, finesse means that its moving from one note to another in an appropriate manner, which can mean abrupt movement or seamless movement. This applies for motion graphics, except and animator's finesse means moving with appropriate control from key frame to key frame rather from note to note. Hence, this affect the movements of our animation by editing the graph.

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 helps the animator to cut down on the complexity of making an animation. Besides, it have many tools from creating primitives shapes to playblast the animation and save it into a folder. MAYA is like a tool to everything needed for animation - 2D or 3D animation. MAYA is straightforward in terms of creating the object from a primitives shapes as well as to animate it since it have a timeline which is similar to the other programs.

Through this exercise, the lecturer guide us slowly to make a ticket booth using an UV texture editor tool. With the UV texture editor tool, we can easily add textures to the polygons that are created easily.

Here is a picture on how the texture can be added easily to the polygons just by inserting the texture pictures into 3 rectangular shapes. Here is the textures that i've chosen for my ticket booth.

After applying the table above to my ticket booth base, this is how my base look like. With different textures at the different surfaces of the base.

This is how it look like when i'm creating a pole for my ticket booth. I just simply use the "pipe" polygon tool and duplicate it to make it look like two poles supporting my ticket booth roof. The roof is simply made of a cuboid. After creating the simple primitive shapes for ticket booth, i joined them together making it a simple ticket booth. Next, i insert the textures accordingly to the primitive shapes.

This is how my final ticket booth look like:

Front view

Top view

i've also read up about making more complicated textures using the UV texture editor tool.

Here are the link to it:
ONE [Roadkill UV Tool]
TWO [How can I quickly UV a head model in Maya?]

THREE [UV Texture Editor]

**To view the extra web, click on one, two or three**

This is my final photo of my toy room

Top view

Front view

Through this exercise of creating the toyroom, i've learned that maya actually allow its users to import scenes and combining the things in the scenes into one. This helps to save people time as it does not require much time on importing.

And i've research on how we can actually import the scenes altogether from the web.

credits: http://autodesk-maya.wonderhowto.com/how-to/import-object-from-one-scene-another-maya-7-379378/

I've also researched about importing and exporting with crosswalk for MAYA, the site describe on the steps we need to do in order to import and export with crosswalk.

You can read more about the importation and exportation with crosswalk for MAYA here.

TENNIS BALL

This is the video of my tennis ball.

This is the video of my beach ball. In this lesson, I've learned to create an animation with one of the principle of animation which is the squash and stretch.

WHAT IS SQUASH AND STRETCH??

^{cr: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squash_and_stretch}

^{Before having to create a squash and stretch effect, i wasn't sure on how to do it. Hence, i searched some tutorial on it to find out how to do it.}

^{Here's the link to it:}

^{http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIxbouDiA2M}

^{And besides the above video, i've also found some tutorial online teaching us how to create squashed and stretched effect not only on balls but on other stuff. Below is the link for the site:}

^{>>>> http://www.pdipierro.com/tutorials/Stretch.html}

^{RESEARCH // REFLECTIONS}

^{1. Why is squash and stretch so useful in animation?}

^{source: http://animation.about.com/od/faqs/f/Why-Is-Squash-And-Stretch-Important-To-Animation.htm}

^{2. Think of a situation in which extreme squash and stretch could be applied to a character}

^{We can use squash and stretch on a heavy object jumping from a high angle. For example, a hippopotamus jumping down to a river from a tree branch.}

^{1st scenario:}

A hippo is on a weak tree branch that keep swaying, and the hippo jumped down into a river from the tree. An exaggerating squash can be implemented when the hippo is jumping down.

Scenario 2:

The hippo stepped on springs accidentally and began to bounce along the way.

An exaggerating squash can be implemented when the hippo reach the ground with the springs and an exaggerating stretch when it began to bounce.

^{sources of images: i edited the picture myself in photoshop}

^{3. Think of an animation example where squash and stretch would not be appropriate}

^{When a car is driving, it is not appropriate to implement the squash and stretch effect as it would look weird and since it does not occur in real life.}

^{4. If squash and stretch doesn't really happen to obviously in real life, why do you think is it so effective in animation?}

^{source: http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/aim/a_notes/anim_principles.html}

^{RESEARCH // REFLECTIONS}

^{1. Do you need to be able to draw well to create good 2D animation? Explain your view.//}

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

^{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?}

Does this affect how you approach your animation work? Explain.

Here is a picture on how the texture can be added easily to the polygons just by inserting the texture pictures into 3 rectangular shapes. Here is the textures that i've chosen for my ticket booth.

After applying the table above to my ticket booth base, this is how my base look like. With different textures at the different surfaces of the base.

This is how my final ticket booth look like:

Front view

Top view

i've also read up about making more complicated textures using the UV texture editor tool.

Here are the link to it:
ONE [Roadkill UV Tool]
TWO [How can I quickly UV a head model in Maya?]

THREE [UV Texture Editor]

**To view the extra web, click on one, two or three**

This is my final photo of my toy room

Top view

Front view

And i've research on how we can actually import the scenes altogether from the web.

credits: http://autodesk-maya.wonderhowto.com/how-to/import-object-from-one-scene-another-maya-7-379378/

I've also researched about importing and exporting with crosswalk for MAYA, the site describe on the steps we need to do in order to import and export with crosswalk.

You can read more about the importation and exportation with crosswalk for MAYA here.

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