Week 12: Lab 1 & 2 Exercise 2

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

      No, I feel that 2D drawing is less detailed compared to 3D drawing, therefore there isn't a need to be able to draw well to create 2D animations. 2D artwork portrays lesser detail as compared to 3D and therefore it would be easier to create a good 2D animation. 

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

      I personally feel that being able to draw well will definitely produce a good 3D animation, but it does not mean that not being able to draw will produce a bad one. As long as the animator follows the principles of animation closely, even an average looking piece of drawing will look nice when animated. Being able to draw is like a bonus. An animator can animate another artist's work. I also feel that drawing and animator is two different things. A good animator might not be able to draw well and a good artist might not be able to animate well. The skills needed for each field are different after all.

      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?

      It all depends on whether the animator have applied the 12 basic principles of animation in his/her animation. I will go about deciding whether a piece of animation is good or bad by first looking at the principles. How many principles out of 12, have the animator applied in his animation will greatly determine whether is it good or bad. For example: A comparison between a ball bouncing off the ground with squash and stretch effect and the one without. Which one will be a better animation?

      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.

It will not affect how am I approaching my animation work because I'm going to learn them both and apply them during my work exercises.

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 the graph editor makes it very easier for me to edit my 3D animation. With the time slider and play back controls in Maya, it allows me to check my animation work even when I am doing it. I can also edit frame by frame.