IN3D Week13 Lab 1 & 2

Lecture for Exercise 2

Tip - Rigging
Always rig in any orthographic view (never use perspective, use side view instead)

Parenting
1. Select childobj.
2. Shift select parentobj
3. Press P to parents

(All in Hypergraph - Hiearchy)

Unparent
1. Select Child
2. Edit > Unparent

Forward Kinematics (FK)
Inverse Kinematics (IK)

Always reset tool

ikHandle is always done using translation instead of rotation.

Select object then select joint then click 'P' to parent to join them.

Process

Exercise 3
1) Animate the box moving at a linear speed past the robot.

2) Animate the crane lifting the box.

There’s no need to worry about the principles of animation – treat this is a purely mechanical, robotic movement. Later, you’ll be adding some life and personality.

Reflection

There are so much to prepare for before the start of an actual animation. Parenting and constraining can be really confusing, but after going through the tutorial, I think I am a little clearer now.

Exercise 4
Discuss the following questions on your weblog.

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).

First example, small lamp is "younger" because it hop while the big lamp only slide to move around. This shows that the small lamp is young and full of energy.

Second example, small lamp has more joints than the big lamp and the small lamp uses all the joints while it is moving, while the big lamp moves very limited.

Third example, small lamp has more exaggerated movements than big lamp. When both the lamps are "kicking" the ball, it is shown that the small lamp swings more than the big lamp.

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 Luxo Jr is happy and excited, the movement timing is fast and catchy. There are also sudden and fast movements that Luxo Jr did while he was excited. But when the ball is deflated, the movements and timing become slow and then fast again when Luxo Jr found a bigger ball.

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.

When the chain is created, it allows the whole chain to move in the same direction from the top to the last joint at the bottom.