Lab 7: Collaboration and Character
IDS252: 3D Animation, Fall 2009

Goals

• Experiment with character interaction.
• Experience collaboration with one other person.
• Learn how to organize a complex Maya project.
• Learn how to keep expectations down so that one can finish on time!

Directions

1. File Location: Again, please work on enfuzion drive and not on your H drive. Create a new folder with a name composed of your last name and your partner's last name. This folder should go into the enfuzion folder \IDS252Fa09\Lab7\Workspace\ When you have completed the animation, place a copy into the folder \IDS252Fa09\Lab7\FinalAnimations Make sure that the name of the file you copy into this folder includes your both your name and your partner's name.

2. Organization: A main goal of this lab is to learn how to organize your project! For example:

   • Set up an appropriate folder structure within your project. All assets (e.g. textures, maya files, source images, etc) should be in the project folder.
   • Always set your project before you begin.
   • Rename objects and materials in your scene so that they are easily identifiable in, say, the outliner.
   • Before beginning to model a character, think about the hierarchical structure and the controls that are needed in order to animate it.
   • "Clean up" the model before adding controls or referencing, e.g. delete history, freeze transforms, group & rename elements, ...
   • Learn how to use layers.
   • This is a good time to try out the render farm.

3. Tutorials: There are no tutorials this week.

4. Project Description & Directions

   • Task: In this lab, you are to work with one other person to create a 10-20 second animation. The animation will be about the interaction of two characters. It could be as simple as two characters walking into the scene from either side, meeting briefly, and leaving. The main requirement is that there be some simple but noticable interaction that takes place.
   • Focus:The focus should be on the characters and their interaction, that is, the scene should be minimal, containing only a few objects (if any) other than the characters. Any objects that do appear should be there for a reason, i.e. they should play an active part in the interaction. Shading and texturing should also be minimal, however, do pay attention to lighting.
   • Planning: Before starting with Maya, you and your partner need to do the following:
     • Decide the look and movement of the characters. The two characters should be different (i.e. don't make one just a copy of the other). The characters should not be complex. They don't have to look human-like (remember the wedge from Polyworld!) but they need to have some attribute or attributes that will convey something about their personality and be used to convey the nature of the interaction. Keep it simple!
     • Decide the nature of the interaction. Include a brief background story. Who are these characters, what leads to their interaction (is it planned, accidental?) and what is the emotional exchange during the encounter?
   • Project Setup:
     • You and your partner need to to create a single Maya project in which to work. Besides including "images" and "depth" folder, you should also create a "scenes" folder where all of your Maya scene files will reside. Within the scenes folder, you might also want to create subfolders for "characters", "props", and "environment". This may be overkill now, but it gets you thinking about how to organize your 1 minute animation.
     • In class, we will discuss how to reference objects but you might want to also read about referencing in Maya Help (read section called "About file referencing"). Each character should be created in a separate scene file and the "environment" should be in a third scene file. The scene file where the animation will be done should reference these three files. Before creating the references, be sure that the characters and environment being referenced are cleaned up (ask the instructor if you don't know what this means!)
   • Division of Labor:
     • Each person will create one of the characters. Controls need to be understandable to someone who did not model the character because your partner will do some of the animation.
     • The environment should be minimal so one person should volunteer to do this, or you can do this together. Or have one person create the environment and the other person do the lighting. Note, the lighting should be done at the end after all the animation is complete.
     • The animation should be divided into two time segments where one person animates one and the other animates the other. These two segments should be done in separate Maya scene files (note, referencing should make this easier) making sure that the two segments match up properly when the frames are put together (this could be a place where there is a change in the camera (i.e. shot change)).

Evaluation

Place your final animation on \\home\enfuzion in the folder IDS252Fa09\Lab7\FinalAnimations. Be sure that the file name contains your name.