Week 12 Lab 1 and 2

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


I personally do not feel that to create good 2D animation, one needs to be able to draw well. Although I must admit that to be able to draw well will definitely be an advantage in my 2D animation, as it will allow me to be able to draw out my concept (storyboard) and give me a better overview on my entire animation. In my opinion, to create good 2D animations, being able to draw well is not the most important factor, the most important factor will be being able to keep in mind the animation principles and implementing them into your own animations. Not only that, but you must also be able to ensure your animation to play smoothly. Only with these skills, will you be a good 2D animator.

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

Once again, I feel that being able to draw well does not play a major role in being able to create good 3D animation. I supposed creating 3D animation is going to be more difficult than creating 2D animations, because there is another perspective/view that the animator will have to put into consideration in order for his/her animations to be realistic and play smoothly. Hence, I feel that being able to draw well will help the animator create good 3D animations to only a certain extent. This skill in drawing well will only aid the animator in a clearer visualization of his overall 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?

In my opinion, the subject/topic of the piece of animation is not important to me if I am judging if the animation is good or bad. I will see if the content of the animation, if it plays smoothly and if the animation principles are implemented at the necessary parts of the animation. The amount of animation principles does not matter either. It does not mean the more animation principles implemented into the animation, means the piece of animation is good. This is because, sometimes some parts of the animation does not even require animation principles and if the principles are added in at the wrong parts of the animations it will cause the animation to not be able to play smoothly and hence disrupt the quality of the animation. Overall, I can say that the timing of the implementation of the animation principles must be right in order for the animation to be a good one.

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.

Personally, I have not tried 2D animation before, and hence I am not very familiar with the techniques and terminologies used. However, I can guess that it will be somewhat similar except that in 3D animation a third attribute will be introduced, for example the translate Z attribute. Therefore, I suppose that it does affect how I approach my animation work to a certain extent.

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.

I feel that Maya is a very useful animation tool, as this software is equipped with so many tools with its own specific use. Unlike programming, there is no one definite solution to modeling or animating in Maya, this is because there are simply so many tools to choose from. This is what I feel that Maya has done exceptionally well. However, on the other hand, due to this variety of tools at the user's disposal, it will also mean that the user will have to take a long time to learn the purpose and how to use each and every single tool to be able to speak the Maya language fluently.