Self Assessment for Design Discourse 1

I began this semester with the basic understandings of animation that most people have.  ‘Oh like Disney and stuff’.  That kind of thing.  I had a basic idea of animation and knew of a few animators who were famous and some who were local.  Design Discourse 1 offered me the opportunity to learn and listen to lectures being given by individuals who were highly knowledgeable on areas of animation history.  I heard in depth about the development of animation as a whole and how the early experiments of animation were stepping stones that helped us reach the heights of animation that we know today.

I loved the lectures we received and took a lot from them.  I gained information about animation styles I had never been interested in and started to research them and educate myself further in regards to them.  I took a lot from them and they become essential in helping me write my essay for this module as well as find contextual references when developing and researching projects for other modules of this course.

Just like animation history, I began this semester totally clueless with the 3D software side of animation.  I dreaded the week that we would begin to open up Maya and start to explore the various tools and abilities it had.  I was completely freaked out and it took at least 2 weeks before I felt fully comfortable sitting and messing around within the software.

I achieved a lot within this area of the module.  From someone who had never even thought or understood animation software, to someone who could make a bouncy ball move and react within an obstacle course that I designed within Maya.  I am proud of my progress within this medium and am extremely excited to see where this style of animation leads me next semester.

I am encouraged and motivated to keep pushing myself out of my comfort zone and start to take on more outrageous and brain-melting tasks within the software Maya.

Reflection and Show Reel of Maya Animations

To complete this assignment, we were to understand and put into practise the 12 principles of animation.  Each week we were given a specific task that challenged our minds and imaginations and gave us the opportunity to put into practise, our studies of the 12 principles.

From studying, reviewing and researching the 12 principles of animation, I found myself more aware and capable of understanding the processes and methods that go into adding various effects and personality to animations.  From this understanding, I was able to bring this into my week by week projects in my Maya team and use it to develop and carry out my tasks to the best of my ability.

We covered all 12 principals from squash and stretch, right through to solid drawing and appeal.  These studies have allowed us to complete our Maya tasks in a more educated way and enabled us to achieve greater results due to this.

Learning the techniques of the art of animation has been a key learning curve for all of us and will play a major role in our student life moving forward as we continue to receive challenges and tasks to complete.  The information we now have will stand by us going into our second semester and will continue to be a reference and help to us in the animating days ahead.

Below is my collection of my Maya animations from this first semester of Design Discourse 1.

12 Principles of Animation – Presentation Day

Today; myself, Phoebe, Michelle and Eoin presented our presentation on the 12 principles of animation and gave contextual references of animators who use these principles frequently within their work and projects.

The presentation went pretty well and we were able to explain all areas and principles rather successfully.  In addition to this, we were also able to explain how we used our research to help us when it came to creating our own Maya assignments and tasks.

Below is the link to our online presentation on Google slides

12 Principles of Animation Presentation – Phoebe, Thomas, Michelle, Eoin

Today was all about getting our presentations out of the way as this is one of our final major assignments before our Christmas break.

Yuan came to speak to us at the end of this class as our Design Discourse 1 Essays are due in on the 16th of this month…wait…5 days away?! AHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhh!!!….anyway….Yuan was here to give us last minute advise and guidance and to answer any questions we had in regards to our essays, their layout, their content or our references.  I plan to have my essay finished on the 15th so I can submit it and relax on the 16th as a reward to myself for just being such a hard worker…..ha.

Anyway, will keep my blog up to date over the Christmas period as I do some personal work as well as going back and adding to past areas of both the Creative Elements and Design Discourse 1 module assignments/tasks.

Merry Christmas!

Presenting Worm Blob Rig – Take 2

Today I showed my newly designed worm animation.  When I playblasted this animation, it decided to play slightly slower than how I designed it.  I will have to go back into it and correct the key frames so I can achieve a properly timed and realistic animation.  Although it is playing a bit slower than I would like, I was happy with the work I put into this animation.  Last week I freaked out about this rigged Maya file but this week I decided to stick at it and keep persevering to achieve what I wanted.

The plan for this animation was to have my worm character on top of the cube originally.  The cube would then start to tip forward unexpectedly and my character would have to brace and just to safety before the cube fell completely.  As I said, if this animation played at the timing I intended, I feel it would look at a satisfactory level.  i was happy with my used of squash and stretch and anticipation within this project.

Alec has advised me to look more at the build up to the jump of the character as he may need more of a clear indication to the audience of his intentions before making his lunge forward.

Below is the playblast of my worm rig animation from this week:-

For next week, we have to work in our teams to design a presentation that includes each team members Maya projects.  Along with this, we also have to explain the 12 principles of animations and use our examples of animators to show examples of how these principles are used in their projects.

Contextual References – 12 Principles of Animation

Over this last week we have been asked to study and gather an animator for each of the 12 principles of animation.  We then had to show and give examples of how these animators had carried out these principles in their work.  To quarter the workload, we got into our Maya teams and decided that each member would take 3 principles and from there we would then cover all 12 principles.

I will be doing research for the principles; Squash and Stretch, Anticipation and Staging.

First up, squash and stretch.  Squash and stretch is the principle that animated objects will become longer or flatter to emphasize their speed, momentum, weight or mass.  A good example of an animator using squash and stretch could be William Hanna and Joseph Barbera who were the producers and creators of the Tom and Jerry series of cartoons.  They used long expressive lunges and grabs to their scenes using a lot of squash and stretch animation.  Below is an example from the show of squash and stretch in effect.

Figure 1: – Tom stretches unnaturally to grasp Jerry

The next principle of animation that I am going to research is Anticipation.  Anticipation is when a character prepares for an action to give the audience a clue as to what is going to happen next as well as to make the action seem more realistic.  A good example of how anticipation is used by an animator would be Chuck Jones in the Coyote and Roadrunner sketches.  Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner use frequent anticipation in the scene below.  They stop and start running quite a few times in this scene and the use of anticipation is clear.  There is a backward motion carried out by each character before they begin running.  This is used to build up an idea of what the character is going to do and to make the action seem more realistic and filled with momentum.

Lastly, I will research the principle of animation known as Staging. Staging is the presentation of any idea so that it is completely and unmistakably clear.  A good example and use of staging by an animator would be Raman Hui who was the supervising animator on the first of the Shrek movies.  His monitoring and guidance in relation to the scenes are what make it a prime example of staging.  We know where each character is, what they are experiencing and their emotional and physical states.  This is a professional example of how good, solid staging can give a film such as Shrek a large audience number and ensure it is warmly received and followed by it’s viewers.  Below are some scenes from Shrek that introduce so of the well selected and designed scenes that contributed to the overall exceedingly high standards of staging.

Presenting Worm Blob Rig

Today we presented our worm rig animations.  This was probably the toughest week for me in regards to Maya.  The aspects of trying to move the worm and it’s separate components really messed my head about.  In addition to this, the thought of trying to make the blob interact with it’s surrounding messed my head about further.

My aim for the animation was to have a ball bounce in from the left hand side, hit the cube and then the cube would fall on top of the blob and it would get squished.  I mildly achieved this but not in a smooth or believable way.

I realised that the ball in this rig wouldn’t allow me to manipulate it so it had a sense of realism and squash and stretch movement.  Due to this, my sphere appears to glide in and hit the cube.

I feel my squash of the blob is at a satisfactory level but could obviously be looked at again in the weeks to come and improved.  Alec agreed with me on all these issues and advised to me take a break from this rig and continue developing and working on what im comfortable with at the minute, bouncy balls and colouring.

Below is my attempt from this week, hopefully next week goes better…:-

For next week, Alec has given us the same rig, and wants us to try and push the boundaries further.  To try and emphasize the character interacting with his surroundings in a more full on way.  Have the character jump onto or off the surrounding polygons, have the character head the ball up into the air and keep it up like a seal or something along those lines.

I am just going to take my time on it and hopefully manage to not mess up as much as I did this week.  We also have a research assignment for next week that will help us with content for our presentations which are coming up in the next couple of weeks.  I will create a separate blog post from these research pieces later in the week.

Learning How to Add Colour

Today I had a great revolution in Maya.  Not that exciting really, but my team mates Michelle and Phoebe showed me how to achieve colour in my animations and make them less dull and grey like they have been the last few weeks.

I am highly amused by this small learning curve and am starting to add colour to my previous animations to see the different styles and effects I can draft into my Maya assignments.

I didn’t realise how easy it was to achieve colour but am really grateful or the help Michelle and Phoebe have been to me in helping me learn how to do this.  Below is an example of how i have started to go back to my previous animations and adding colour to the main content models within the animation.  Here is my original bouncy balls animation but this time with a twist of colour magic!:-

Presenting Arm Rig

Today we got to present our arm rig exercises to Alec to get his feedback and thoughts on the work we had done.  I showed Alec my more mechanical arm I created on my own and he was able to explain to me why I wasn’t able to achieve the movements that were available on his rig.  One day maybe this year I would love to learn this whole side to rigging the model so I can learn to make them movement and manipulate them to make them more realistic and fluid.

I also got to show Alec my attempt at working on secondary and overlapping action on his rigged arm animation.  He has told me to come back to this at a later stage, maybe in a couple of weeks, and work on the movements more.  He said it was good but did need some work in it to enhance the overall appearance and realism of the animation.  Below is the video clip of my animation using Alec’s rig:-

Today in class Alec talked us through our next Maya assignment which involves a lot of learning the term ‘interaction’.  Alec has provided us with a worm blob rig (A rig of a small purple slug looking character).  Using this rig, we are to make it move and interact with the surface it is on.  Whether that be a jump and landing or a slug styled movement along the ground.  This will be an interesting challenge to attempt.  This will involve us moving the tail and head of the character in harmony as to create the illusion of movement or interaction with the character’s surroundings.

Arm Rig – Team Discussions

Today our team messaged each other to see how each of us is fairing for this arm rig Maya assignment.  Truth be told? We are all struggling.  Phoebe was confused today about how to speed up her arm rig and how to control and move key frames.  Michelle was able to suggest Phoebe used the dope sheet as it is the main tool that can be used to control key frames and the speed of an animation.

I have struggled with this arm rig so decided to go off and try and design my own arm just to see if I would be able to do it.  Unfortunately I still don’t really know the difference between a rig and normal models.  I soon figured out that the rig that Alec provided us with, allowed us to move each separate component of the arm as they were each saved individually as parts on the model.  Whereas, my model that I had designed was not rigged and so when it came to trying to move it and make it look realistic….I had no chance….and found myself confused and annoyed at myself because I couldn’t do it right.

Even though my model was not what this week was about, I was still kind of happy with the set up and content of my short animated arm.  It is very mechanical but I used various techniques within the animation to make it seem like the ball in the animation was being lifted by the arm, carried a short distance and then let down again.  I will post it below: –

I will aim to work on the rig Alec provided us with tomorrow and try to focus further on the whole overlapping action and secondary action areas.