I used to give this to my students as the midterm exam for an Advanced XSI course which focused on the animation mixer and mental ray rendering. It is a closed book exam which means no notes, no books, no computers, no reference materials. You are only allowed a pencil, eraser, and one blank 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of scratch paper.
Each question must be answered with complete sentences to receive credit. No points for bonus question until all other questions have been answered to completion. Exam duration: 60 minutes. The best score by my students was a 96. The average score was 84. Let’s see how you do. NOTE: This exam was created when XSI v3.5 was the current release (2003). Some behaviors / workflows may be different compared to what you use today. ------------------------------------- Name: Date: PART I: Animation 1) What requirements must be met for two action clips to be able to blend their values within the Animation mixer? 2) Name three advantages XSI constraints have over key frame techniques for animating objects: 3) Name three advantages for using the animation mixer to animate scene elements (as opposed to setting key frames or applying constraints directly on the objects): 4) How does a 'linked parameter' affect an object's animation differently from a constraint or FCurve? What are the advantages of a linked parameter? 5) A sphere is animated via an FCurve from the global origin to roll along the X-axis until it reaches X=10 at frame 50. The key frames are applied to the sphere's global position and local orientation parameters. From frames 51 through 100, the sphere is animated via a pose constraint from X=10 to another arbitrary point in 3D space designated by another object. The sphere moves from X=10 to the designated target via an adjustment of the constraint's blending value from 0 to 1 (full off to full on). If the constraint is then stored as a source and instanced onto the animation mixer as an action clip on frame 1 (thru 50), what happens to the sphere when the play button is pressed? 6) Name two methods/tools for adjusting influence from one action clip to another on the animation mixer (i.e.: transfer full influence from 1st clip to the 2nd clip): 7) What is the difference between an action 'source' and an action ‘clip’ in the animation mixer? How can editing data within each affect the rest of the scene? 8) How do you make an exact copy of an action clip in the animation mixer (including clip effects and other adjustments)? 9) What is an offset map? 10) What are the restrictions of an offset map? (i.e. pros and cons) 11) Name 3 possible uses of an offset map: 12) What is the difference between a pose clip and an action clip? Name 3 reasons why you may need to use a pose clip: PART II: General tools 13) How does the explorer view differ from the schematic view? 14) Name 3 things that can be performed in the explorer view that cannot be performed in the schematic view: 15) What's the difference between the Match translation/rotation/scale tools and the position/orientation/scale constraints? 16) What's the difference between a selected parameter and a marked parameter? What's the purpose of each? 17) What requirements must be met before a parameter can be marked? 18) Name three possible methods for marking parameter(s) of scene elements: 19) What is a proxy parameter? What are possible uses of a proxy parameter? 20) What is the Object viewer and what advantage(s) does it have over other viewers? 21) What is a model and why should it be used? BONUS: Name as many methods as you can for editing parameter values: (1 point each) ------------------- Matt Lind Animator / Technical Director Softimage Certified Instructor: Softimage|3D Softimage|XSI matt(dot)lind(at)mantom(dot)net
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