Week 13 Exercise 2 Questions

1) Apart from their different sizes, it is obvious from Luxo Jr. that the big lamp is “older” and that the small lamp is “younger”.
How is this communicated by the animation? Give at least THREE examples.
Do NOT say because the small lamp is playing with a ball, or that its name is Luxo Jr. – you should be looking at the animation, how the lamps move and emote (emote means to express emotions).

First, the smaller lamp feels more energetic than the bigger lamp. The smaller lamp tends to leap around more often and moves around the area frequently compared to the big lamp. Younger people will usually be more energetic and likes to move and jump around, compared to the adults or even the elderly.

Secondly, the small lamp also express its disappointment when the smaller ball deflates by lowering its head, while the big lamp, after the small lamp temporary left the camera view, moves in such a way that it gives a sense of relief that the trouble is gone, and is also observing the deflated ball. Therefore, it shows the maturity of the two lamps and obviously the expressions shown by the big lamp and small lamp shows that the small lamp is more immature than the big lamp, and older people shows more maturity than the younger people.

Thirdly, the big lamp shows less interest in the small ball as it tries to move it away from its surrounding whenever the ball rolls in front of it, without any concern of where the ball is heading to. However, the small lamp is playing with the ball, and not getting rid of it, as it is trying to chase the ball after pushing the ball away from it. Therefore again, we can see that the big lamp is much more adult because adults have less interest in things such as the ball, which does little to make it enjoyable for them, while children will be more curious about the ball and try to generate some fun with the ball by moving it around so that they can enjoy themselves.

2) Give an example from Luxo Jr of how timing is used for comic effect. Explain how the timing decisions contribute to the humour.

The timing of the movement, actions and reactions of the lamps makes it looks more lively. Since lamps are robots their movements should be rigid, fixed, and has a constant speed, but because of the different timings and fast motion and slow motion in different periods, it creates humanly personality in the lamps. The possessing of human behaviours and movement due to the timing makes it looks more comical since should lamps really move in real life, the movement timings and all are fixed and constant.

3) When you create a joint chain, these form a hierarchy, with the first joint at the top and the last joint at the bottom. Explain why this is necessary for the joints to work properly.

The first joint influences the rest of the joints below it. Without the hierarchy, if we rotate the first joint, other joints will not move together with it. The hierarchy also describes the relationships of the joints, since not all joints might be belonged to one whole group.