Section A

1. Autodesk Maya is 3D Animation software Maya 3D animation, modelling, simulation, rendering and compositing software offers a comprehensive creative feature set for 3D computer animation, modelling, simulation and rendering on a highly extensible production platform. Maya provides high-end character and effects tool sets along with increased productivity for modelling, texturing and shader creation tasks.

2. What is pre-production? It is a production stagePre-production is the phase of further developing ideas and planning prior to the process of production. In a live action movie sense it is the period before filming starts. In an animation sense it is the period before any real animating takes place.

Like all great projects the success is in the planning. This section gives an overview of the different steps involved in the Pre-production process and how each step helps to develop a 'roadmap' on which to base the further production stages.

3. Anticipation is one of Animation Principles4. Light box is one of the Animation Tool5. Insert key frame short-cut in flash F6

Section B

1. What is animation? Explain any one type of animation.Animation is the process of creating a continuous motion and shape change illusion by means of the rapid display of a sequence of static images that minimally differ from each other. The illusionas in motion pictures in generalis thought to rely on the phi phenomenon. The 3 types of animations are

i. Traditional (Cell Animation)ii. Stop Motion Animation

1. Puppetoon2. Clay Animation3. Cut-out Animation

1. Silhouette Animation4. Model Animation5. Object Animation 6. Pixilation Animation.

iii. Computer Animation1. 2D Animation 2. 3D Animation

Traditional animation, (or classical animation, cel animation, or hand-drawn animation) is an animation technique where each frame is drawn by hand. The technique was the dominant form of animation in cinema until the advent of computer animation.

2. What is perspective? Explain any one type of perspective.There are two simple rules about representing depth. Size decreases with distance, meaning objects that are further away from the viewer appear to be smaller. Objects also overlap when one is in front of the other, hiding part or all of the farther objects. These two observations are the basis for perspective. The easiest way to understand how perspective works is to imagine standing in the middle of train tracks (not recommended for safety reasons) and looking along the tracks into the distance. Visually follow the tracks to the horizon (where the earth meets the

sky) and the tracks appear to meet at a point in the distance. This converging point is called the vanishing point. Quite simply, perspective is the illusion that something far away from us is smaller. This effect can be naturally occurring as in a photo, or a mechanically created illusion in a painting. In 2D artwork perspective is a technique used to recreate that illusion and give the artwork a three-dimensional depth. Perspective uses overlapping objects, horizon lines, and vanishing points to create a feeling of depth. There are several types of perspective used to achieve different effects.

3. What are the differences between primary and secondary colours?Primary Colours- These are colours that cannot be created through the mixing of other colours. They are colours in their own right. The three primary colours can be seen below RED-YELLOW-BLUE.

Light has its own set of primary colours and pigment (ink) has its own set of colours

Colours are colors of light. Pigments are substances which absorb color (think that pigments "eat" color).

The three primary colors of light are termed additive primaries. They are red, green, and blue.

Red and green mix to form yellow, or another color in between such as orange or lime. If someone shines yellow light at you and a mix of red and green light at you, you cannot tell the difference.Blue and green mix to form cyan, or a color in between. Mix together red light + green light + blue light, and you see white light.

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Primary colors of pigments are termed subtractive primaries.

They are cyan, magenta and yellow. You see cyan, magenta and yellow in your printer ink cartridges for this reason.

Cyan pigment absorbs red, and reflects green through blueMagenta pigment absorbs green, and reflects blue through violet along with red.Yellow pigment absorbs blue and reflects red through green.

Mix together pigments and you combine their absorption of color. This means that if you mix the following as pigments, you get ...

cyan & yellow = greenmagneta & cyan = bluemagenta & yellow = redcyan & magenta & yellow = black, if began with perfect pigments

4. Explain pre-production processThe first process in the animation pipeline, and also one of the most important, is pre-production. It begins with the main concepts which are initially turned into a full story, and then, once the story has been finalized, other things such as the script, shot sequence and camera angles are worked on.

Some major components of pre production are Story Boarding, Layouts, Model Sheets and Animatics.

...they also provide a visual reminder of the original plan; something that can be referred back to throughout the production.

Story BoardingThe Storyboard helps to finalize the development of the storyline, and is an essential stage of the animation process. It is made up of drawings in the form of a comic strip, and is used to both help visualise the animation and to communicate ideas clearly. It details the scene and changes in the animation, often accompanied by text notes describing things occurring within the scene itself, such as camera movements.

Not only can storyboards be especially useful when working in group environments (something quite common in the animation industry,) but they also provide a visual reminder of the original plan; something that can be referred back to throughout the production.

Layouts

Once the storyboards have been approved, they are sent to the layout department which then

works closely with the director to design the locations and costumes. With this done they begin to

stage the scenes, showing the various characters' positions throughout the course of each shot.

Model Sheets

Model sheets are precisely drawn groups of pictures that show all of the possible expressions that

a character can make, and all of the many different poses that they could adopt. These sheets are

created in order to both accurately maintain character detail and to keep the designs of the

characters uniform whilst different animators are working on them across several shots.

During this stage the character designs are finalized so that when production starts their blueprints

can be sent to the modeling department who are responsible for creating the final character

models.

Animatics

In order to give a better idea of the motion and timing of complex animation sequences and VFX-

heavy scenes, the pre-visualization department within the VFX studio creates simplified mock-ups

called Animatics shortly after the storyboarding process.

These help the Director plan how they will go about staging the above sequences, as well as how

visual effects will be integrated into the final shot.

5. Explain any 2 animation priciples

Section C

1. History of animation Evidence of artistic interest in depicting figures in motion can be seen as early as Paleolithic cave paintings. Animals in these paintings were often depicted with multiple sets of legs in superimposed positions. Another example includes a 5,200-year old earthen bowl found in Iran in Shahr-e Sukhteh. The bowl has five images painted along the sides, showing phases of a goat leaping up to nip at a tree.An Egyptian mural, found in the tomb of Khnumhotep, at the Beni Hassan cemetery includes a sequence of images in temporal succession. The paintings are approximately 4000 years old and show scenes of young soldiers being trained in wrestling and combat. A Chinese zoetrope-type device had been invented in 180AD. Numerous devices which successfully displayed animated images were introduced well before the advent of the motion picture.

The magic lantern (c. 1650)The magic lantern is an early predecessor of the modern day projector. It consisted of a translucent oil painting, a simple lens and a candle or oil lamp. In a darkened room, the image would appear projected onto an adjacent flat surface.

Thaumatrope (1824)A thaumatrope was a simple toy used in the Victorian era. A thaumatrope is a small circular disk or card with two different pictures on each side that was attached to a piece of string or a pair of strings running through the centre. When the string is twirled quickly between the fingers, the two pictures appear to combine into a single image.

Phenakistoscope (1831)Thephenakistoscope was an early animation device. It was invented in 1831 simultaneously by the Belgian Joseph Plateau and the Austrian Simon von Stampfer. It consists of a disk with a series of images, drawn on radii evenly spaced around the center of the disk. Slots are cut out of the disk on the same radii as the drawings, but at a different distance from the center. The device would be placed in front of a mirror and spun. As the phenakistoscope is spun, a viewer would look through the slots at the reflection of the drawings which would only become visible when a slot passes by the viewer's eye. This created the illusion of animation.

Zoetrope (180 AD; 1834)The zoetrope concept was suggested in 1834 by William George Horner, and from the 1860s marketed as the zoetrope. It operates on the same principle as the phenakistoscope. It was a cylindrical spinning device with several frames of animation printed on a paper strip placed around the interior circumference. There are vertical slits around the sides through which an observer can view the moving images on the opposite side when the cylinder spins. As it spins the material between the viewing slits moves in the opposite direction of the images on the other side and in doing so serves as a rudimentary shutter. The zoetrope had several advantages over the basic phenakistoscope. It didn't require the use of a mirror to view the illusion, and because of its cylindrical shape it could be viewed by several people at once.

Flip book (1868)The first flip book was patented in 1868 by John Barnes Linnett as the kineograph. A flip book is just a book with particularly springy pages that have an animated series of images printed near the unbound edge. A viewer bends the pages back and then rapidly releases them one at a time so that each image viewed springs out of view to momentarily reveal the next image just before it does the same. They operate on the same principle as the phenakistoscope and the zoetrope what with the rapid replacement of images with others, but they create the illusion without any thing serving as a flickering shutter as the slits had in the previous devices.

PraxinoscopeThe first animated projection (screening) was created in France, byCharles-mile Reynaud, who was a French science teacher. Reynaud created the Praxinoscope in 1877 and the Thtre Optique in December 1888. On 28 October 1892, he projected the first animation in public, Pauvre Pierrot, at the Muse Grvin in Paris. This film is also notable as the first known instance of film perforations being used. His films were not photographed, but drawn directly onto the transparent strip. In 1900, more than 500,000 people had attended these screenings.

2. Explain the animation process (steps)Pre-Production

StoryboardingLayoutsModel Sheets

Animatics

ProductionLayout

Using lo-res models or blocks of geometry in the place of the final set and characters, the Layout Artist is responsible for composing the shot and delivering rough animation to the animators as a guide. What they produce is the 3D version of what the storyboard artists had previously drawn on paper.During this stage the Director approves camera moves, depth of field and the composition of the models making up the set and set dressing. It is then the responsibility of the Modeling department to deliver these approved set, prop and character models in the final layout stages.

ModellingModelers are usually split into two or more departments. Whilst organic modelers tend to have a sculpture background and specialise in building the characters and other freeform surfaces, hard-surface modelers often have a more industrial design or architectural background, and as such they model the vehicles, weapons, props and buildings.

TexturingWhether creating a texture from scratch or through editing an existing image, Texturing Artists are responsible for writing shaders and painting textures as per the scene requirements.

LightingNot only does a Lighting Artist have to think lighting the individual scenes, they also have to consider how to bring together all of the elements that have been created by the other departments. In most companies, lighting TDs combine the latest version of the animation, the effects, the camera moves, the shaders and textures into the final scenes, and render out an updated version every day.

RiggingRigging is the process of adding bones to a character or defining the movement of a mechanical object, and it's central to the animation process. A character TD will make test animations showing how a creature or character appears when deformed into different poses, and based on the results corrective adjustments are often made.

AnimationIn modern production companies, the practice of meticulously planning a character's performance frame by frame is applied in 3D graphics using the same basic principles and aesthetic judgments that were first developed for 2D and stop-motion animation. If motion capture is used at the studio to digitize the motion of real actors, then a great deal of an animator's time will also be spent cleaning up the motion captured performance and completing the portions of the motion (such as the eyes and hands) that may not have been digitized during the process

Post-ProductionCompositing

The compositing department brings together all of the 3D elements produced by the

previous departments in the pipeline, to create the final rendered image ready for

film! Compositors take rendered images from lighters and sometimes also start with

compositing scripts that TDs develope in order to initially comp together their dailies

(working versions of the shot.)

Sound Editing

This department is responsible for selecting and assembling the sound recordings in

preparation for the final sound mix, ensuring lip sync and adding all of the sound

effects required for the final film.

Video Editing

Video editing is the process of manipulating and rearranging shots to create a

seamless final product, and it is at this stage that any unwanted footage and scenes

are removed. Editing is a crucial step in making sure the video flows in a way which

achieves the initial goal. Other tasks include titling and adding any effects to the

final video and text.

3. Explain animation trendsCurrent trends in animation:Geometric modeling and instrumentation

Building characters with the right shape and control points is time consuming..Realistic rendering

Research in rendering materials accurately is ongoing.

Recent progress in Bi-directional Subsurface Scattering

Distribution Functions (BSSRDFs) is changing the look of everyday thingsand skin.

Physical simulationSome effects are too difficult to model by hand (fire,

snow, steam, rustling trees, hair, cloth, etc.) Can do simulation (both physical and non-physical) Particle systems Fluid flow and turbulence modeling Rigid body dynamics

Controllable simulationWant to have some interactive control. Example: insert cloth wrinkle here. How do you merge this with the physical simulation without starting over?

Digital humansMaking realistic human bodies and faces and animating them is really hard.

Digital humans: motion capture Body shape modeling Facial animation Facial editing Facial animation

4. How to create a hook up pose and hook up shotThe hook-up pose is the glue that holds the cartoon together. If you cut from one character (or more) to a different scene entirely, you dont have to worry about the hook-up. It doesnt apply.

But when you cut to a scene with one character (or more) to the next scene with the same character(s), then you have to hook-up the poses. Which means the characters pose in the last frame of the first scene and the first frame of the next one should basically match.

Section D

5. Design a city layout in a one point perspective

6. Design a bedroom in a single point perspective

7.