#householdobject

[igrms]

‘सप्ताह का प्रादर्श’ (02 से 08 नवम्बर, 2020 तक) थोनी, लकड़ी का अनाज पात्र यह एक स्थानीय प्रजाति अंजलि की लकड़ी के एक ही टुकड़े को कुरेद कर बनाया गया एक वृहद बेलनाकार अनाज-पात्र है। इसकी ऊपरी सतह पर भंडारित अनाज को बाहर निकालने के लिए लकड़ी का एक दरवाज़ा है। पहले इस तरह के लकड़ी के अनाज-पात्र केरल के ग्रामीण लोगों द्वारा खाद्यान्न का भंडारण करने के लिए उपयोग किए जाते थे। यह खासतौर पर आर्थिक रूप से संपन्न परिवारों द्वारा अपने अनाज को लंबे समय तक सुरक्षित रूप से संग्रहित करने और साथ ही अनाज को कीड़ों, मूषकों, पक्षियों और चोरों से बचाने के लिए उपयोग किए जाते रहे हैं। सामान्यतः इस पात्र को घर के भंडार गृह में अनाज को सुरक्षित रूप से भंडारित करने के लिए रखा जाता है। कठोर वन नीतियों के लागू होने के कारण पेड़ों की कटाई प्रतिबंधित होने से इस तरह के विशाल प्रादर्श अब स्थानीय समुदाय में दुर्लभ हो गए हैं तथा निर्माण या उपयोग नहीं किए जाते हैं। अब यह अनाज-पात्र लकड़ी एवं अन्य सामग्रियों से बने तुलनात्मक रूप से छोटे पात्रों द्वारा प्रतिस्थापित कर दिए गए हैं। आरोहण क्रमांक - 99.03 स्थानीय नाम - थोनी, लकड़ी का अनाज पात्र जनजाति / समुदाय - ग्रामीण समुदाय स्थानीयता - कोल्लम, केरल माप - ऊँचाई - 94 सेमी, लम्बाई - 258 सेमी, गोलाई - 302 सेमी। श्रेणी - ‘AA’ वेबसाइट की लिंक / Website link - https://igrms.com/wordpress/?page_id=1424 #thoni #grainbin #foodstorage #anjaliwood #householdobject #kollam #kerala #ruralpeopleofkerala #igrms #museumfromhome #objectoftheweek #ethnograhicobject #museumobject #museumofman #museumofmankind #museumofhumankind #indeginoustechnology #traditionalknowledge #staysafestayhealthy #covid19 https://www.instagram.com/p/CHE8tiQDhPX/?igshid=8r4pwy4z3761

[ba2aphoebeowen]

Finishing Animation

Final Animation

Process Below  ⬇ ⬇ ⬇

After animating the arm, I looked into what I could do to completely finish off my animation. I looked into some of the filters that After Effects offers, the first of which tried being the ‘bad TV’ setting, which I quite liked. I also looked at the presets ‘night vision’ and ‘cracked tiles’ to see which aesthetic I’ like to go for.

Notes

- Foot switches could be smoother and quicker to indicate better bounciness.  - Add a kind of ground or environment to place him in.  - Left foot dips beneath the ‘floor’.  - Arm looks too much like a catapult, needs some weight to it? - Add more bend to knees. 

Working with the notes I was given, I made a few small changes to my animation. I first fixed the foot on the left so it wouldn’t phase through the ‘floor’ of the scene, and I tried to make the other foot come down faster to create more of a bounce. I couldn’t do much about the knees bending, however. 

To establish more of a presence for the robot I added a slightly moving shadow - if I wanted to dedicate more time to this project it might be worthwhile to create a more unique setting for the robot to be in. I also altered the movement of the arm clamp, so it lingers a bit more on the right and it indicates more weight. 

[ba2aphoebeowen]

Animation Working II

I struggled to replicate my arm/clamp rig from my previous blog post at first, so I left it while I animated the legs. With these, the issue became adding follow through to the bending of the knees - the leg pieces are linked together through ‘parenting’, and rotating the knee ends up rotating down to the foot. The foot would therefore slide around a lot when it wasn’t supposed to. 

I managed to get the legs into a consistent enough loop - I would want to add more bend than there is currently, but how this is rigged I’m not sure I can. To make up for this even slightly I had the tablet screen bounce downward a bit more at the ends of the arc.

Next was working on the arm clamp’s arc - unfortunately this rig doesn’t work quite how I’d like it to. Due to the amount of parenting happening, I can’t parent the arm back to the tablet so it follows (as each part is parented to it’s own rig piece). I wondered if it were possible to parent an object to two things but wasn’t sure this was possible. 

I tried parenting the controller for the arm rig to the tablet, first the overall controller and then the ‘arm’ section of it. Both attempts didn’t have the desired result, although the first was closer. 

For some reason parenting the ‘arm’ section made the arm smaller, and disconnect in places. It does follow the tablet, which is what I wanted, but of course this doesn’t really work. I did try to just scale up the arm, but this didn’t really work directly and breaks the rig.

After asking for help with the arm rig, I found that what I was wanting to do seemed impossible. It should work, but for whatever reason it wasn’t working with my composition. I gave animating with the rig manually a go, and decided that the animation would be easier to complete manually. 

[ba2aphoebeowen]

Animation Working I

For my first try at animating the tablet robot, I went into after effects and just tried to get all of the pieces moving together rather than using DUIK to rig it. Parenting the appropriate body parts together, I had the monitor screen do a simple arc, and had the body parts move as desired. 

This being my first attempt at animating a character in after effects, I haven’t yet implemented many principles of animation here. However, according to the brief, I think this animation would be suitable for the final turn in. If other avenues of animating this character don’t work out, I might refine this animation with some overshooting and correcting the movement for the final piece. 

Installing DUIK, I then tried to rig the character, which I found remarkably more difficult:

I couldn’t get the joints to stay together convincingly. I followed an online tutorial about this, in which the process seemed a lot simpler (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KbtQV-Gir8).

Next I had a go at another function in after effects with Duik, which involved adding pins to my puppet and moving it that way. As a test, I only did this with the arm/clamp of my robot. However I found that this feature might be best used with a humanoid character, as it replicates the form of an arm that naturally bends - which doesn’t work for a static in shape robot. 

The last thing I tried was to add a preset of an arm to the clamp and rig the movement through that. Following this small tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IqQNPpyJEU) I rigged the arm in it’s 3 separate pieces so I would have more flexibility in it’s movement. 

This method seemed to work the best for the arm movement overall. It allows for the arm to do almost a full 180° so I can add the amount of follow through / overshooting in the animation that I want to. I wondered if this method would also work with the legs or if I would be stuck manually animating them.

When I tried the leg option, it didn’t work in quite the same way as the arm did. The automatic leg rig has a lot more joints than my tablet’s leg, and I think that removing these extras might be causing complications. 

I also went back to try the pin method again as this was simpler to set up. At first I didn’t mind the flexibility of the joints as it could allow for some interesting animation techniques, however I couldn’t seem to find an ‘auto-stretch’ option like I had done with other rigging options. I would usually untick this option to stop the pieces from being stretched out to keep the volume of the pieces more uniform. 

To give this rig a test I only animated the left leg, and was really put off by how much the foot stretches. I’m not sure if I can keep a consistent volume with this. 

After exploring all of these avenues, I decided to try combining my methods slightly. I managed to get quite far with manually animating most of the pieces, so I plan to return to that file and improve the movement slightly there. I will also be implementing the arm rig for the clamp/arm as it allows for more flexibility as seen in it’s corresponding screenshot. 

[ba2aphoebeowen]

Animating in After Effects

We had a short session teaching us the basics of animating in After Effects, and below was my first attempt. I wanted to see how difficult the legs might be to animate and while I didn’t devote a lot of time to my first try I can see why they weren’t recommended.

Perhaps doing the artwork in Photoshop  (or in my case Paint Tool Sai) first and then importing it into After Effects will work better - also when I’ve detailed the movement I want to capture. 

I also wanted to give a simpler design a go - this one is just a sphere with a stick and a piece of string attached to it for now. This loop shows the robot trying to get the plant into sunlight, but being restricted by the distance the string will allow it to go. I do like the goofiness of this concept so it’s a good fall back if I really can’t manage the tablet gif. 

[ba2aphoebeowen]

Final Design

Chosen Design:

My favourite design is the tablet for it’s animation capability, but a part of the briefing mentioned not having legs for simplicity in this task. Perhaps when I’ve learned how to use After Effects for animation I can give it a go, despite the ruling. Otherwise I think I’ll need to alter this design to avoid animating legs (perhaps they’ll be stuck together to avoid individual movement?). 

I think I’ll be able to keep the clamp on it’s back in order to incorporate some drag into my animation. 

[ba2aphoebeowen]

Thumbnail Designs

I found it somewhat difficult to come up with robot concepts, but luckily got a couple of ideas from our briefing. My main ideas were having a more comfortable time drawing, which relates closely to my desk and how crowded it is - hence a desk organizer, a mobile litter-picking lamp and a portable tablet. 

Another idea came when I glanced at my terrarium, and how I struggle to keep the plants inside happy due to lack of light in my room. The idea centers around a small robot with an extendable arm and solar panels, so it can detect where the sun is shining near a window and move the plants into the rays as the day goes on. Design wise I could imagine this robot having quite a scatterbrained personality (obsessing over where the sun is) and as it’s on a string I can see it bumping into the wall a lot, hence the cushion taped to it. 

Another concept I quite like with my portable tablet. It would be able to move around freely and it’s legs could act like a stand - the clamp on it’s back to attach it to desks. Design wise I also liked having a drawing program open with a smiley face as it makes the design friendly in appearance. 

[dekleinekapitein]

I’m trying to finish up some projects that have been in progress for aaaages, so I finally made the last potholder to complete the set! Started them years ago after a tunesian crochet workshop. #tunesiancrochet #crochet #yarnygoodness #householdobject #imadethis #cotton #potholders #pannenlappen #yarnaddict #crochetersofinstagram https://www.instagram.com/p/B6_MKraF_-8/?igshid=f4spp938yrnb