Welcome
to CSE590YA
Animation
Production, Summer 2002
Instructor: Barbara Mones
Teaching Assistants: Eric Mead, Timothy Williams
Course meeting locations: OUGL Room 220, Lecture and OUGL Room 326/Sieg Room 228, Lab
Description:
Animation Production is a course for CSE Professional Masters Program
students who have an interest in digital animation. Short films
("shorts"), animated feature films, animated television commercials
and/or fine art animation will be reviewed and analyzed in depth. Emphasis will
be placed on the technical and aesthetic basics of animation production in
experimental animation and the animation production pipeline. Practicing
animators and other guest lecturers from the animation industry will present
topics ranging from character design/development/performance to motion capture
and post production.
Textbook: Principles of Three-Dimensional
Computer Animation, by Michael O'Rourke, Norton Publishing, 1998
Grading: Grades will be based on attendance ( 30%), participation (25%) and
projects (45%). There will be no exam. The emphasis will be on how you apply
what you learn.
Projects: You will have an unusual and we believe, exciting opportunity to learn the setup and pipeline for the development of a short films. We have provided for you a copy of the shared working environment that the Animation Capstone worked in several weeks ago. Your projects will stem from realworld problems that were encountered as part of the production process. We will review with you six or seven challenges that we faced and would like you to select two that you would like to attempt to resolve. See below for general categories.
1. Camerawork.
2. Hands -- rigging.
3. Hair
4. Editing/Credits
5. EFX -- Smudgy Bees, etc.
6. Texture Mapping and Character Shading -- Bio and ADad
7. Audio
Projects will be critiqued in class in OUGL 326 on the due date, so late projects are not acceptable. You are encouraged to continue work on your project after the critique session to implement the suggestions. Projects will not be graded as such, but extensive comments will be given in writing after each critique session.
Schedule: The schedule is below. Wednesday lectures will take place at OUGL220 for the whole class. The three hour period will be roughly split into lecture, invited presentation, and technical demo. The class will be split into two groups for the summer lab sessions. Both groups will be expected to attend the Saturday workshops. This will be your time to learn new things and work on your projects. You will also get feedback on your projects at this time. From 2-4pm on Saturdays, the groups will overlap and meet together in 326 OUGL. Technical meterial will be presented to the group and project work will be reviewed as needed. The lab times are designed with alternate schedules to make an attempt to accomodate the students and the TA's. The groups will meet from 12-5 or from 2-7. If you wish to stay after the alotted time for your group, you may do so. You will be assigned a key from CSE that will allow you access OUGL 326 and also a card that will give you access to Sieg 228. The library hours are more restricted than the SIEG 228 hours. Odegaard hrs. are posted on the web.
You will be asked today to select Group A or Group BN. Please keep two things in mind when doing so.
One -- Group A will meet from 12-5 and Group B will meet from 2-7.
Two -- Group A will focus more on Character Rigging, Character and Prop Modeling, and rendering. Group B will focus on EFX , Motion Capture and Shading/Compositing/Post Production. Both groups WILL overlap quite a bit but if you know beforehand that you have a specific interest in one or more of these areas, you might wish to join that group.
One additional item. There WILL be special PMP workshops this summer -- two involving classical animation exercises and one specifically for character shading. Select one of the classical animation exercises and I'll poll you in class to assess interest in the character shading project/workshop.
Wednesday June 26 --
Introduction to Animation Production/ Technical Challenges -- Intro to the
Maya Interface. Tutorial.
**
Saturday June 28 -- Saturday workshop -- #1 Intro to Maya 2 -- Maya
Modeling and
Shading, ********** Required for admittance ********* BRING IN TWO or THREE
objects you would like to model. REAL objects. No pictures of objects unless you
have real ones too.
Wednesday July 3 --
Shot Breakdowns/Mocap, Maya Pipeline and Motion/Mocap.
Wednesday July 10 --
Ruth Hayes, Member of the Faculty, Animation, Evergreen College.
"Experimental Animation: Art of Quick Changes"
Part One: Starting Points
Project Selection and Review
**
Saturday July 13th -- Saturday Workshop -- Classical Animation/ Maya EFX
and
Particle Systems
Wednesday July 17,
Bill Moritz, Professor, California Institute of the Arts
"Experimental Animation: Art of Quick Changes"
Part Two: The Avant-garde
**
Saturday July 20 Saturday Workshop, Classical Animation Exercise/
Technical
Troubleshooting for Final Projects.
Wednesday July 24,
Christine Panushka, Professor, Dept of
Animation and Digital Arts, USC.
"Experimental Animation: Art of Quick Changes"
Part Three: Contemporary Experimental Work
**
Saturday July 27 Saturday Workshop -~ Maya Intensive/Character 3D
Paint/Shading
Wednesday July 31 --
Richard Karpen, Professor, School or Music and Director, Digital Arts and
Experimental Media
Experimental Animation: Art of Quick Changes
Part Four: Synaesthesia
Saturday August 3
Final Critique and wrap-up....
Wednesday, August 7
Michael Cohen, Research Scientist, Microsoft and Adjunt Professor, CSE
Experimental Animation: Art of Quick Changes
Part Five: Technical Research on Digital Animation