Week 13 Lab 1 and 2

Exercise 2

Selected Skeleton > Joint Tool and created the the joint and bones of the skeleton as shown in the diagram above.

Parented the pins of the robot arm to the joints. The new hierarchy is shown in the diagram above.

Selected Skeleton > IK Handle Tool and connected the bottom skeleton joint to the top skeleton joint as shown in the diagram above.

The diagram above shows the new hierarchy after the IK handle was created.

Selected Create > Locator Tool to control the robot arm. Moved the locator to the top left of the robot arm.

After freezing transformation of the locator, I gave an annotation to the locator for reference. Select Modify > Freeze Transformations to freeze transformation. Select Create > Annotation to give an annotation to the object.

Selected Constrain > Point tool, and now the IK handle is constrained to my control object which is the locator. 

The rigging is complete and the robot arm is now ready for animation!

I found this Maya tutorial simple and easy to understand. From this exercise I learnt the importance and the convenience of freezing transformations of control objects. Most importantly, I finally learnt how to rig an object to give me a simpler time when animating and also a more realistic animation.

Exercise 4

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).

The small lamp looks younger as it seems more playful and full of energy. The playfulness of the small lamp is shown as it moves around in small and quick hops, stopping for a few seconds to rest before continue moving. The small lamp often exits the screen too to chase after the ball, while the big lamp stays at the same spot most of the time, as if it is tired and lazy to move due to old age. At one point the big lamp stops to look at the flattened ball and shakes its head in disappointment, thinking to itself that the small lamp is naive and childish. I feel that that part was animated extremely well as I could feel what the big lamp was thinking as if it had a mind of its own.

2)  Give an example from Luxo Jr of how timing is used for comic effect. Explain how the timing decisions contribute to the humour.

At some parts of the animation, everything stops moving or slows down, giving the audience enough time to interpret and digest what is going on. For example, when the small lamp jumps on the ball and flattens it, as the ball flattens everything seems to happen in slow motion. This is to give enough time for the audience to comprehend what is happening and also give them time for a quick laugh.

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.

The order of the joints in the hierarchy is extremely important when rigging an object. If the joints are not properly  parented to one another, when u are moving the object during animation, the animator may not get the results that he/she is looking for.