ATEC 4437

Assignment 3: Neutral walk vs emotional walk

Description

Produce two wireframe animations of a character walking. In one animation a character's walk should be neutral, which means the character does not express any specific emotion or mood. In the other animation the same character's walk should be expressing his/her emotion and mood in his/her body language. 

Process book research

(25%)

Pair up with another student in the class. The process book research part of Assignment 3 is a group project. Thus, each group turns in the following five items created by the group members. (The animation part is an individual project. Thus, each student turns in two animations created by himself/herself.)

1. Create a character description by assigning every attribute in a character development exercise to the character.

2. Select one adjective that describes an emotional state of a human being.

3. Develop a situation or an event that explains the emotional state of the character that is described by the selected adjective.

4. Create four reference video clips. Walk as the character of your description and have your partner video tape your performance. Your partner must tape two performances of yours: a neutral walk and an expressive walk. Switch the roles and tape your partner's performances. Your group should have four video clips (your neutral walk, your expressive walk, your partner's neutral walk, and your partner's expressive walk).

5. Create two thumbnail storyboard with timing. Study the motions and timing in the reference video clips. Select one of the neutral walk's reference video clips and one of the expressive walk's reference video clips. Find important keys and create thumbnail storyboards by sketching out the character in key frames as a stick figure. Get timings from the video clips as well. There should be two thumbnail storyboards per group: one for neutral walk and the other for expressive walk.

Submission:
In your local area (e.g., a hard disc drive of your home computer or a flash memory connected to a computer in an ATEC lab), create a process book page for Assignment 3 in the html format. You can use Microsoft Word, DreamWeaver, or any application you like. The main page should be named as processbook.htm. Your process book should contain all the five elements for the process book research specified above.

Create a new folder in \\Atec01\Midori\Drop Box\4337\your_last_name and rename it as A3.

Copy your process book's main page, processbook.htm, and any other files that are linked to the main page into your folder A3. Make sure that the links are made among the files that have been copied into the folder, i.e., no hyperlinks should point back to your local area.

Requirements:

• Process book research with the five items specified above.
• If your group's process book is in your partner's folder, make a link from your own process book in your folder. Thus, your own process book may have just a link to the process book research in your partners. The links to your animation's avi files and maya files (which are due on later dates) should be placed in your own folder and linked to your own process book.
• Your process book must be accessible from your name (link) in "student_works.htm" in \\Atec01\Midori\Drop Box\4337.

Due date

9/29/2009

Animation

(75%)

The animation production part of the assignment is not a group project. Each one of you is required to produce two wireframe animations of the character described in your process book research:

• In the first animation, the character's walk should be neutral, showing no particular emotion or mood.
• In the second animation, the character's body language in its walk should express the emotion that you selected in your process book research.

Requirements:

• Use the rigged character provided by the instructor.
• Each student should produce and submit two animations: a neutral walk and an emotional walk.
• Create a ground plane and make sure the feet do not go through it, float above it, or slide on it.In each animation, the character should take at least 10 steps, with no looping or cycling.
• Arms should swing properly using either IK or FK.
• Torso should be twisted properly to bring the opposite shoulder and hip to the front.
• Among the nine factors influencing walking, Factors 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, and 9 must be achieved. Extra points will be give for proper implementations of Factors 5 and 6 (flexion of trunk).
• Your character should move forward in the world space. This is an assignment of a walk cycle animation; however, unlike a 2D walk cycle in which the background image is moved while the character keeps taking steps at the same location, your character should move, not the world.
• Apply as many principles of animation as possible.
• Produce playblast (or hardware rendered) animations in the AVI format. The frame size must be 320 x 240.

Important tips:

• Read the instruction for the given rigged character carefully and play with it for a while before working on the animation assignment.
• Work on a neutral walk (Part 1) first and then work on the expressive walk (Part 2).
• Start with the forward movement (z-translation) of the legs (footControls) and the torso (globalControl). Work on the arms after keying and moving the character forward in space.
  

Submission: Submit the following files in your (or your team mate's) A3 folder in the class's submission folder \\Atec01\Midori\Drop Box\4337\your_last_name\A3

• Scene files (Maya binary files).
• AVI animations (10 mb or less).

And create links from your process book's main page to files above.

• Do not save any files other than the ones you are required to submit in the class's submission folder. \\Atec01\Midori\Drop Box\4337 is not a work space. Transfer your files to the specified folder, and make sure the links work and the animation file is playable before the class starts on the due date. 
• If you really want to, you can render your animation using software renderer, but this assignment is about animation and you need to focus on animating.

Due date