Lab 4: Creating an Animation Loop with Music
IDS252: 3D Animation, Spring 2011

Goals

• Continue practice using keyframes, path animation, etc.
• Learn how to import and respond to sound.
• Learn a little about skeletons, forward kinematics, inverse kinematics.

Directions

1. Files and Folders:
   • Work on the enfuzion drive and not on your H drive.
   • When you create a new project, place it on the enfuzion drive in the folder: \ids252Sp11\lab4\WorkSpace\#_your_name.
   • Include an "images" subfolder in your project (see previous lab for more detail).
   • When you have completed the lab, please copy your final animation over to the folder: \ids252Sp11\lab4\FinalAnimations
   • Make sure that the name of your final animation starts with your last name.

2. Tutorials: In Maya, go to Learning Resources, Tutorials, Getting Started with Maya, and finally within that go to Animation. Work through the lesson:

   • Lesson 5: Inverse Kinematics. The file IK_MechArm.mb that you need for this tutorial can be found on enfuzion in the folder \ids252Sp11\Resources\GettingStarted\Anim.
     Before starting, be sure to copy this file into your own project folder. Note, this lesson will not be collected.

3. Music Assignments: You will find 10 second music loops in the folder \ids252Sp11\lab4\MusicLoops. Below are the assignments:

   Jose	10 sec.LoopAHFinal.aif	Qiana	BH_10secLoop.aif
   Lucas	Bounce 1 MS.aif	Tim	TMloopMN.asst2.aif
   Alex F.	DD_ASST2.aif	Andrew	DD_ASST2.aif
   Elizabeth	MIDI Loop _ pre master.aif	Dylan	NA_LOOP1.aif
   Daniel K.	RA_asst2_master.aif	Tommi	TJB_ASST2_Loop Bounce.aif
   Aaron	TL_Assignment 2.aif	Chris	Fj_Assn2.aif
   Torsten	BH_10secLoop.aif	Alex P.	10 sec.LoopAHFinal.aif
   Jen	CRWJ_ASST2_MASTER_FIXED.aif	Georgia	NA_LOOP1.aif
   Daniel W.	Bounce 1 MS.aif

4. Loading Music into Maya:

   • It is assumed that you already have your project created and have copied your sound file into this project.
   • Below are the key things that you need to do. Note, more detailed directions for importing sound files can be found in the Maya Help (do a search on "import an audio file") :
     • Before you begin, remember to set the frames-per-second (fps) to 30. To set the fps, go to the main Maya menu, choose Window;Setting/Preferences;Preferences.... In the Preferences window, click on Settings. In the pull-down menu labeled Time, choose NTSC (30FPS). This sets the animation to 30 frames per second (fps).
     • While still in the Preferences window, click on the Time Slider category. Where is says "Playback Speed", select "Real-time (30fps)". Note, if you don't do this, you won't be able to hear the sound. Click the Save button to exit.
     • To load in a sound file, go to File;Import... from Maya's main menu. Select the sound file you copied into your project folder (if your project is not set, Maya will place you in the wrong folder. You should always set the project).
     • To see the sound wave in the timeline at bottom of Maya window, right click on the timeline, choose Sound, and select the name of your sound file.
     • You need to expand the time range slider so you can see the entire sound wave. To do this, right click on the time slider and choose "Set Range to -> Sound Length". The length should be very close to 300 frames if the sound is 10 seconds long.

5. Adding Sound to the Animation: To add sound to the final quicktime animation, you will need to load the sound file into Adobe Premiere elements along with the image frames. The frames are dragged down to the video track and the audio needs to be dragged down to the audio track. Make sure the video and audio are properly aligned. Generate the quicktime as you did in the last lab.

6. Creating Your 10 Second Animation Loop: Listen to the sound multiple times to develop a sense of the movement and feeling of the music. Based on this, create an animation that is your response to the music (remember, there is no right or wrong). As in the last lab, your animation should be a loop, i.e. it's end should transition seamlessly back into the beginning. Be prepared to discuss how you applied at least several of the animation principles listed below. Refer to UW Principles for detailed explanations.

   Squash & stretch Anticipation Staging Follow-through Overlapping action Slow-in, slow-out Arc vs linear motion

   Secondary action Timing Exaggeration Knowledge of technique Observation and translation Appeal Imagination

7. Using a Rigged Character: If you wish, you may use the rigged character bloke (bloke_v2.3.ma), whose maya file may be found in the folder \ids252Sp11\Resources\RiggedCharacters. You need to copy the file over to your project.

Evaluation

Before class on Tuesday, Feb 15, place your final animation on \\home\enfuzion in the folder \ids252Sp11\lab4\FinalAnimations. Animations will be graded based on the following:

• (1 pt) Does the animation loop.
• (1 pt) Is the animation length 10 seconds (or the length of the sound).
• (8 pts) Does the timing and movement "feel right" (One probably needs to adjust keys and tangents in the graph editor.) This relates to whether there has been an attempt to apply the above 14 principles of animation.

In class, we will look at the following questions.