Course Details:

Final Project: An Animation Production
This course will culminate in a 3D computer animation production (typically a short animation, but can be an 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 animation production.

This course introduces advanced 3D computer animation and virtual world building techniques. Integrates hands-on fundamentals with design praxis and theoretical and research concerns. 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 behaviour modeling techniques and a team-based design project. Prerequisite: IAT 343 or 241. Students with credit for IART 416, 417, or 418 cannot take this course for further credit.tion.

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 3130. 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.

How do I figure it out:
This class is not on Maya, it is on 3D computer animation and animation 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 ( for students - no saving and other limitations) here for home use.

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.

These are scheduled times for extra open lab for iat342 work:

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.