Due at the start of your prac in week 8.

When was the last time you backed up your work? (Use multiple physical locations.)

Warning - we have just received word that your household room has a bomb in it! Call in the robot bomb disposal unit...

You are to create and render an animation of the robot interacting with your household scene to find and defuse/remove the bomb. It's up to you where the bomb is, but extra marks are awarded for creatively placing the bomb somewhere that the robot has to interact with the scene to get it - e.g. open the cupboard/draw/etc. to get to the bomb. (This will reward people who did a good job of logically separating the objects in task 1.)
It is also up to you how successful your robot is. You may want the bomb to go off and blow it up!
You may change your scene from task 1 if you wish (remove things to make it play/render quicker, or change objects to your needs, etc.)

Robot Construction

Each part of the robot should be modelled as a separate object and then included in the final scene. It is important to think about where the pivot point of each part should be, and then set up good parenting. (You can create Null objects and parent objects to them. Rename a Null object by saving it in the Objects panel.)
Plan your robot well on paper and construct it completely before you start animating it, although doing some quick animation tests to make sure you have set it up correctly is a good idea.

Your robot should have some form of multi-segment arm with the ability to rotate and move

Starting on paper is an excellent idea, and will save you a lot of time in the end. Think about the construction of your robot - how do the bits fit together? How will it move/rotate/etc. Draw it, then consider the issues you need to work out before you run Inspire.

You can not use any pre-built models that come with Inspire or from anywhere else, but you may use the built-in surfaces.

Animation

You need to create an animation sequence of at least 150 frames at 15 frames per second (10 seconds). The robot should move as 'naturally' for a robot as possible. You might find that setting the spline controls to Linear in the Graph Editor for certain keyframes makes your animation more like you planned (otherwise it might move around more than you want).

Render the final animation at "Low Resolution" - 320*240 and save it as a IN_NewTek-AVI file. When it asks for the compression settings, please use Microsoft MPEG-4 Video Codec V2 (the default settings should be fine).
Use an Antialiasing setting of at least "Low".
Please note that this will take a significant amount of time. Plan for it by doing it in a room where there is no prac in the next few hours, and do it well before it is due!

Here is a sign you can print out to put on the computer if you wish to go away while it is busy (PDF File). Please write your own name on the bottom of it after you print it. Don't staple it to the computer.

Choose one frame from the 'movie' and render a medium resolution JPEG image with high antialiasing as your 'advertising' image.

Both files should be named in the same manner as task 1 -

The deliverables will be:

• 1 animation - AVI (please copy to your tutor's CD in the prac)
• 1 image - JPEG (please copy to your tutor's CD in the prac)
• 1 .lws Inspire 3D Scene file
• n .lwo Inspire 3D Object files (one for each object)

Marking

• Robot Construction - 4 marks
  Have you made it well, using good objects and proper hierarchies?
• Robot Surfacing - 1 mark
• Animation - 4 marks
  Does it move like it is constructed? Are the keyframes well-placed and the timing accurate?
• Creativity - 1 mark
  Where did the robot find that bomb?