Clown

This assignment will account for 10% of your final grade, to be handed in at end of class 3

The Clown. (CL) Classes 1 - 3.
This simple assignment introduces you to basic concepts of modelling, texturing and animation in maya. After modelling a clown using basic polygon primitives, students parent the parts together in a hierarchy. The completed character is animated to make a simple hop and turn. Scene should be 4 sec. long (96 fr). Featured animation principals: Timing, Ease In/Out, Arcs, & Squash and Stretch.

What I'll be grading on this assignment:

• Does your model match the reference sheet provided?
• Have you added basic color shaders to your character?
• Have you animated a hop and turn on the Clown based on in-class direction?
• Are you effectively using Timing, Ease In/Out, & Arcs?

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In our first class, we'll get a basic run through of the tools needed to create basic polygon primitives and connect them together in a hierarchy. To build our clown, we'll use a Sphere for the head and 2 more for the eyes. Then a Cone for the hat. The body we'll make with a simple Cylinder. The nose is another sphere, scaled along one axis to make in oblong.  Finally we'll make the mouth with a Torus, scaled and rotated. Scale, translate and rotate these simple objects to match this design as closely as you can:

A real test of modelling ability is building to match something - how close can you get?

When we're finished the modeling, we'll add some basic shaders to colour our character and then parent all of the objects together into a single hierarchy. Now we're ready to do some simple animation!

The cylinder body is just named 'Clown_1' and everything else is named for what they are.

I'm just going to animate a simple turn and then a hop to the side, like this:



Be sure to try and apply the animation principles of Arcs, Ease In/Out, & Anticipation when you make your own animation. Final hand in should be a movie file called:

      <Last>_<First>_CL.mov & .ma

                       eg. Latour_David_CL.mov
                             Latour_David_CL.ma

Also, you'll need to hand in your source asset file - name it:

        <Last>_<First>_CLOWN.ma


Well done: were're finished with the clown. Rasputin the cat approves. Now on to the Live Ball!

Rasputin was one of the cutest cats I've ever known: A very friendly soul with wild eyes that earned him his name.