IDS 252: Topics for the Week of October 6, 2008

• Lab:

  • On Tuesday, review student work for Lab 5: Creating an Animation Loop .
  • Discuss and begin Lab 6: Creating an Animation Loop with Music.
    

• Maya Topics

  • Skeletons - creating a simple character.
  • Inverse Kinematics
  • Referencing Files
  • Organizing a project.

• General Discussion

  • Animation Production

    • Three states:
      1. Pre-production (Thinking Stage): writing, design, storyboards, animatics
      2. Production: (Doing Stage): modeling, animation, rendering, etc
      3. Post-Production (Assembling Stage): editing, final sound, title/credits
    • Look at movie examples: Shrek, Ice age.
    • Example Roles
    • Flowhart

  • Storyboarding

    • Yogi Bear
    • Storyboard on Wikipedia
    • Storyboards - OSU, Women&Tech
    • Acting with a Pencil - describes how to use arrows to specify camera movement :
    • Simple and Large storyboard template. Note, the final storyboards should be done one per 8.5x11 sheet of paper.

  • Story Telling

    • How to tell a Story, Ira Glass

    • An applet which provides suggestions:

    • Imagine you have 2-3 very simple geometric characters, e.g. sphere, cube, cone. Place them at some simple location (e.g. bus stop). How do they interact? Their “geometry” should relate to their personalities. How might a cylinder be different from a sphere?

    • Pick a fairy tale (e.g. Little Red Riding Hood). Fairy tales tend to be about the universal human qualities, emotions, experiences. Re-tell the story either 1) in a modern day context or 2) from the perspective of a different character (e.g. from the wolf or the woodcutter ).

    • Think about a feeling that relates to current issues in your life such as school, family, friends, etc. Think of an object that could serve as a metaphor for that feeling. For example, suppose you feel trapped in some way by your parents or by some situation. The object might be mousetrap – how does one develop a story around this? The mouse has gotten trapped and now must make a hard choice – give up its tail (the security of the parents support) in order to gain freedom, or keep its tail at the cost of an uncertain future (die of starvation, killed by human who finds it, released by human who finds it). How does this dilemma mirror your life and what is the resolution.

    • Here is a checklist (pdf) of things you may want to consider.

    • Look at excerpts stored on enfuzion in the folder \IDS252Fa08\Readings:
      • Scott McCloud: McCloud.pdf
      • Acting for Animators: ActingAnim.pdf