Self-Critique

3. Self-Critique

Final Storyline:

At the beginning of the animation, Henry, the robot moves slowly and sighing to show that he is bored of his job. He carries the first two green box with no energy to show that he does not have any passion in his job anymore. After carrying the second box, he turned to continue carrying the third one. He was shocked to see that it was not the same colour as the rest but in red. He find it weird and look closely to make sure that nothing is wrong and to see why was asking himself about the colour.

He then took the box and placed it on the other side so that it wont get mixed up with the rest of the green boxes. When he was about it to put it down, the red box got stuck on him. He tried shaking and spinning to get rid of the box but it was not working so in the end he gave the box a big 'BANG' on the platform and the red box finally let go of Henry. He got shocked and hide himself behind the two green boxes.

Discuss the success of your animation.

I made some changes in my animation. This is because there are some animation that I want to do in my initial animation but I have not learn, like changing the color of one of the boxes from green to red and so I place it in red from the beginning. In my initial storyboard, the box comes alive but in my animation, Henry, the robot and the red box does interact but the red box is not the main character. Henry is the main character that made all the different interaction with the red box. I did not get what I wanted to do in my animation so most of the parts I have to change and do some more movement on to the robot so that it does not look plain boring like a normal animation.

Overall, I'm proud of my hard work. I may need more details like making Henry looks more realistic like the research that I've done. Not only that, I made an effort to add sound effects so that audience are able to feel the situation that my animation is in. Like for example, the first part of the video, the video was slow and boring. After putting in some sound effects, it is clearer that I was trying to portray a situation whereby the robot was feeling bored and sad.

I make sure that the animation went well and tried avoiding any obvious mistakes. I tried making the animation a smooth and exciting one. The animation is one minute plus is because the first few scenes requires lots of key frame.

I enjoy doing 3D even though sometimes I feel like throwing my laptop away when I didn't get what I want but 3D is still the best ! And I hope you will enjoy the video like how I enjoy doing it. Thank you !

Also discuss how you applied the principles of animation, with examples.

Anticipation - Henry, the robot was very bored and the reaction when he saw the red box. He was shocked to see the box that he moves backwards.

Exaggerating - Henry tried spinning to get rid of the red box. The spinning accelerate and decelerate again. Accelerate to show how the annoyed he was and wanted to get rid of the red box so badly. Decelerate to show that he has given up and that strategy didn't work.

Staging - Its when the camera zoom in and focus on Henry and the red box when he got shocked and confused when he saw a red box there. The camera zoom in to focus on the important part when he looked closely on the red box.

Slow in and Slow out - This is when Henry spins his body trying to get rid of the red box. He spin slow at first and eventually gets faster but when he got tired, he slows down and stop.

Arcs - When Henry wants to bring the red box to another side of the platform. He crossed over the green boxes.

Research Done

With the sample video provided, I decided to research more about the movement of the "lamp" to show different expressions and reactions. And from there I observed on how the different movements are done.

Week 15 Lab 2

Thursday Lab

Animate stacking of 2 or 3 boxes (as 1 column or row) from a moving queue

1. Remove all parent constrains from 1 box
2. duplicate the box
3. parent constrain the boxes again

Project 2 Scenes

Scene 1 : Henry was bored


Henry stacks 2 out of the 5 boxes with his lazy gestures.
1.1 Bending down

1.2 Slowly looking to the right and left

1.3 Sigh(move little up and bend down again) and shake his head

1.4 Picks up the first box and carry it with draggy movement

1.5 To show more impact, the first box was slightly squashed

1.6 Henry bang the 2nd box hard on top of the 1st box and squashed it.


Scene 2: Henry throwing tantrum with his job


2.1 Picks up the third box

2.2 To show that he was fatigued of his daily routine, Henry threw the 3rd box(by turning his head only, body remains) to the right together with the other 2 boxes

2.3 Messed up the other 2 boxes that he previously stacked

2.4 3rd box slowly changes its color from GREEN to different shades of RED and finally to the hot striking red to show that it is furious being treated like that.
2.4 Shakes vigorously from right to left as the color changes.


Scene 3: 3rd box decided to play a trick on Henry


3.1 While Henry was turning away (to his right), 3rd box bounces back to its original position

3.2 First jump, too low
3.2 Second jump, medium high
3.2 The 3rd jump was a successful one
3.2 Slide in slightly more to get to the correct position and stayed still

3.3 Henry picked up the box without realizing that it was the 3rd box. As usual, he tried to throw the box again (Repeat scene 2)

3.4 This time round the 3rd box was stuck on the Henry head.

3.5 Henry started shaking his head slowly(to the right and left) to remove the box
3.5 It doesn't worked and so he shakes faster and faster

3.6 He was pissed and turned his body around for several times
3.6 He stopped drastically and stretch its neck and back in


Scene 4: Henry gave up


4.1 Henry gave up trying and bend his neck all the down to rest and eventually fell asleep

4.2 3rd box detach itself from Henry and bounce up and down few times to show how satisfied it was

4.3 3rd box went back to its original place

The end ! :)

Project 2 (Chosen Scenario)

My chosen scenario: Scenario 5

There is a long line of GREEN boxes, as if on a conveyor belt. (You don’t have to model the conveyor belt – just pretend it’s there.) The robot lifts the box at the head of the queue and stacks it in a pile at its side.Once the robot has finished stacking a box, the rest of the boxes move forward one place, and the process is repeated.The robot lifts a box, turns to place it on the stack – but the box is stuck! The robot can’t drop the box! Animate the reaction of the robot, and how it deals with this sudden turn of events.

1. Character

Give a name to your robot.

Imagine that while it is doing its mechanical work, the robot is actually thinking to itself. Write a brief paragraph of what the robot might be thinking – write the thoughts from the robot’s point of view, ie. imagine it is speaking the thoughts out loud, if it could.

The thoughts must be relevant to the scenario that you choose.

Note: these should be the robot’s thoughts before the inciting incident – not while it is reacting to the inciting incident.

Robot's name : Henry

As you all know, humans call me 'machine' but hey, I have a name ok ! You can call me Henry, sounds better than that disgusting 'machine' as my name. I named it after my master's hairy little pet, a dog? What is a dog ? Well, the hairy little thing is cute and its name is quite cool. HENRY... And so, that how the 'Henry' name came about.

And so, this is my life. Trying to make my master's work easier. What a 'wonderful' life I'm having. Stacking boxes all day long. How I wish I have a friend to talk to. Don't ask me to talk to that Henry dog,he doesn't even understand my language. Useless human slave ! Wait, I'm a slave too. Gosh !

I need a friend ! A friend who can joke and play with me. Who wants to be my friend ? No one, I guess. I'm just a machine that was invented to make human's life much more easier. That's unfair for me. I have feelings too even though I'm made out of metals and have no heart. Maybe the boxes can be my friends but they are just boxes. They can do nothing just waiting for me to move them here and there. Such a waste of my time! I hope you can hear me out boxes, I'm lonely now. Boxes ?? Sigh..

Rendering Animation

Create a rendering camera
- Panel > Perspective > Camera 1 (Camera can be resize)
- View >Camera Setting > Film Gate

Get back to Perspective
- Create lights
Place lights behind camera and reduce intensity
1. Directional Light (sunlight)
2. Point Light (Cast Shadow)

Render Setting (Action icon with 2 dots)
For reflection,
Maya Software > Raytracing Quality > Check Raytracing

Week 14 Lab 1

This the animation of the crane that I did in class.

Resource: http://download.autodesk.com/us/maya/2011help/index.html?url=./files/Inverse_kinematics.htm,topicNumber=d0e17823