Course Details:

Final Project: An Animation/Virtual World Production
This course will culminate in a 3D computer animation or immersive environement production ( a short animation, interactive, a game, ....) created by small or large teams. Most of the class will be the production phase of creating this project. Most of the earlier weeks will be learning enough and getting all the setup (idea,story,objects, knowledge, inspiration, team members, mistakes, prototypes, experiments, ...) to be ready to create your Computer Graphics production.

Introduces advanced 3D computer animation and virtual world building techniques. The course integrates hands-on fundamentals with design praxis and theoretical and research concerns. Theoretical and research concerns are derived from: 1) The art and design of virtual worlds for games, collaboration tools, visualization, social and embodied software and 2) 3D and behavioral animation techniques. Fundamentals are complemented with examples from current research and design praxis. The studio aspect of the course will include assignments focusing on specific animation and behavior modeling techniques and a team-based design project, where students use their 3D animation, virtual world building skills and artistic knowledge to create an interactive 3D world, interactive game, mod, installation or an interactive 3D visualization.

Introduces non-programming advanced 3D computer animation and immersive VR techniques. The course mixes 1) hands-on studio-based projects and 2) a non-technical survey of computer animation and VR research areas. The studio track culminates in a team-based 3D project where students use their interactive, VR, 3D skills and artistic knowledge to create a linear or interactive project such as a short film, 3D world, or interactive game or visualization. The conceptual track surveys current research topics in computer animation such as facial animation, behavioral animation, artificial life and interactive systems.

Assignments & Grading:
See the assignment page for a break down of grading and assignments.

Alias Maya Software

Where is it:
Maya (Alias Maya) software is a profession 3D authoring package used by most major movies and games. We have it accessible in many of the labs and surely our lab 3300. Besides our lab class you can use other rooms when they have no classes going on. We might have an unsupervised openlab reserved for you to do Maya assignments outside of office studio lab. MAYA Free to students: HERE with education material: HERE

How do I figure it out:
This class is not on Maya, it is on adv. 3D computer animation and VR in general. We don't teach software packages here, we teach ideas and knowledge techniques. That said we will be using and learning Maya in studio labs class but it is highly technical and additional questions will come up which can slow down the class if we addressed them all. You have two additional ways of getting that technical help. One is post your questions on the Forum board on on Maya tech questions and check out the many additional resources in the library ( both online and in book form). You can also get a personal learning edition of Maya here for educational use.

3D Engines: We will be looking at and using 3D realtime systems, including Game Engines and Toolkits: like Unity 3D. YOu can get a verions in the labs and HERE.

Renderman for Maya:
We now have the industry leading renderer Renderman by Pixar, to go with Alias Maya. Renderman is only a renderer, so you can us Maya to create and animation your 3D models and then send them to renderman for final rendering. Renderman allows for rendering on many computers at once ( max. 10), so is very useful when you have a big project to render out (like the final frames of your final project). It is relatively seamless from Maya. Optionally those students interested can choose to use Renderman in a more sophisticated way, since it has advanced shading capabilities (which is why Pixer, ILM and other top animation houses use it). See the library for their renderman books.

3D Graphics, VR and Animation Talk
Speaking of class participation. Use the web boards to talk about your favorite animation, game or ask on how they did an effect in your favorite animation movie. Just post your questions/thoughts on the Forum board on the computer graphics discussion.