ONE-YEAR
3D ANIMATION PROGRAM

This class is designed to help students develop their scripts for their animation. It focuses on the fundamentals of visual storytelling and provides students with constructive analysis and support as they take a story from initial idea, treatment, step outline to a rough draft, storyboard and animatic. The intersection of story structure, theme, character, tension, and conflict is examined through detailed scene analysis.

These classes cover the geometry of the model and how to use various techniques to create the best topology. We look at how the workflow between nurbs, polygonal and subdivision modeling is used in the industry.

Creative techniques in organic modeling will be the primary focus of this class.

In this series of classes we look at creating the correct and appropriate UV maps for a model, which results in placing seamless and smooth textures on the model.

Students learn how observation and an understanding of the original object’s surface qualities are the skills necessary to create photo realistic textures. Extensive Photoshop work creates realistic and viable textures for models.

Specularity, reflection and the diffuse qualities of surfaces are investigated to produce the correct surface properties.

Procedural shaders using advanced networks are utilized to create believable and economical renders.

Creating joints and controllers is the focus of these rigging classes. Everything one needs to know about creating skeletons which will behave predictably in Maya. Forward and inverse kinematics are discussed. These lectures thoroughly discuss joint placement and orientation and the importance of local rotation axis.

All the basic lighting concepts are explained in this series of lectures. The various properties of the many lights within Maya are fully explained within the context of 3 point and advanced lighting. The importance of shadows and how to use them to create realism in a scene are explored.

This series of lectures introduce the students to character animation. We will see how in applying the basic principals of animation to many different objects we can create characters that have both dynamic movement and weight. We use the graph editor and time line to set key frames and manipulate them in time and space, while developing an understanding of how to adjust the tangents and other tools in the graph editor in order to create exciting animations.

In this series of classes we take full advantage of the wonderful and richly talented skills of the acting staff here at the academy. We learn the fundamentals of acting essential to the enhancement of the animators skills, developing the relationship between the idiosyncrasies of a character and their behavior in movement and speech.

Cameras and their setup are extremely important in a scene. In this class we study real world cameras and their relationship to those used in animation.

Film resolution and aspect ratios are discussed in depth allowing the student a firm grasp of how to create animations which can be seamlessly integrated with real world footage.

This is a Mel scripting primer introducing the student to the world of scripting, giving them the basic understanding of programming concepts such as loops, global procedures and variables.

At the beginning of the second semester students will present proposals for their final projects. The student is encouraged to focus on a specific area of the animation pipeline during this project for inclusion in their animated reels.

Students may work individually or collaboratively with others under the supervision of the animation staff. The goal is for each student to complete a professional quality body of work by the end of the semester.

Additionally, there will be a specific focus on particle dynamics, hard surface nurbs modeling, mental ray and advanced rigging during the second semester.

• Lighting techniques and rendering
• Advanced rendering with mental ray
• Visual effects with particles and dynamics
• Advanced rigging techniques
• Advanced modeling with Maya and Zbrush
• Compositing in Shake
• Creating a dynamic reel for your portfolio

In the second semester, students concentrate on a specific 3-D discipline with the approval and the supervision of the instructor. The intention is to attain mastery in one of the crucial elements of 3-D production. Students have the option to complete a final animated short of their own.

At the beginning of the second semester, students will present and critique ideas and storyboards for individual or team projects. Production approaches will be discussed and chosen. Each project will be fully scripted and planned out on a week by week basis using charts to delineate the production schedule and then critiqued before going into production.

Students will spend most of the second semester, creating work in their chosen area of specialization.

After the production period, students begin compositing and editing their films. Compositing is done in Shake and After Effects. Students can choose to edit digitally on a Final-Cut Pro station. They screen rough-cuts of their projects for the instructor and classmates and receive feedback before presenting their finished films to an invited audience at the end of the course. Throughout the post-production period, the animation and editing staff is available for consultation.

Students finish their films with a digital sound mix on the computer. Some students may choose to do more elaborate sound work and take their projects to a professional sound mix. The goal is for each student to complete a professional quality animation by the end of the semester.

Nurtbs modeling is still used extensively in the film industry for organic modeling and in commercial houses for hard surface product design. In this class we learn the basics of this demanding subject.

This class is a continuation of the first semester rigging classes.

Used for creating visual effects like smoke, fire, explosions, flowing cloth or bouncing objects particle dynamics are an important part of an animation students bag of tricks.

In this class this poweful compositing tool is used to integrate render passes from Maya, allowing greater control over the final image.

An introduction to the Maya and ZBrush modeling pipeline.

This class will look at the basics of the ZBrush toolset, such as creating alphas, modeling with ZSpheres and focusing on creating the correct topology of a model in Maya for export into ZBrush for detailed modeling and the importation of normal, and displacement maps back into Maya.