# 777 Assignment 2: Make A Picture and an Animation

The purpose of this assignment is to give you some idea as to what a
"commercial" animation system does, and to get a little familiarity
with one in the event that you'd like to use it in one of your
projects. 

A side goal is to give you some feel for how hard it is to make good
motion. However, at the level of this assignment you'll probably be
more fumbling with the tools.

This is more of an "art" assignment than a computer science
assignment. However, this should not be a test of your art
skills. Feel free to show off if you want to, but don't get carried
away (unless you really want to).

For this assignment the "commerical" animation system I would like you
to use is Blender. I put commercial in quotes since its open
source. The nice thing about that is you can install it on your own
computer if you don't want to work in B240. 

If you'd prefer to use Maya, it is available in B240. The upside to
using Maya is that it is an industry standard, so being a Maya user is
a valuable skill on the job market. Of course, doing this assignment
won't really make you a Maya user, but if you want to start down that
road...

You are **strongly** encouraged to work in pairs


## The requirements

The assignment is broken into two phases to help you divide up the
work. If it helps prevent you from procrastinating, think of Phase 1
as being due January 29th, but we won't collect it.

**Phase 1: Make a Picture or two**  
Yup, that's it. Make some pictures with the animation system of your
choice. 

**Phase 2: Make an Animation**  
Make a short animation. Don't spend lots of time rendering it (a
screen capture/playblast can be fine if you can figure out how to do
it).  

In the animation, you must have at least two "characters." One should
move using "straight ahead" motion, while the other(s) should move
using the principles of animation to express some emotion.

Simple is good. Try to use the movements of the character to convey
the emotions and intents.Very simple characters can be very
expressive. A bouncing ball, or a walking triangle, or ... I really
want you to think about the movements, not making things look nice.

## What to turn in...

Prior to the due date, we will provide a dropoff directory. You should
place your pictures and your animation file (as a ".avi" that is
reasonably compressed). 

We will "review" these animations in class on Wednesday, February 8th,
so you will have to turn in things the day before.