Lab 8: Animation Production
IDS252: 3D Animation, Spring 2010

Schedule and Due Dates

For a detailed day-by-day schedule of what groups should be doing and what is due, please consult the links in the weekly schedule as they are made available. For a high level overview of the schedule, see the gantt chart below.

Goal

• Story, StoryBoards, and Storyreel: In Lab 7 you developed a one minute story and created a storyreel. It is important to try to get the storyreel timing as close as possible both for the sake of the music students and also for the people in your group doing layout/animatics.

• Assign Tasks: The gantt chart below contains the dues dates and approximate time span of each task. Each group should fill out a task list (excel file) to identify who will to do what. The tasks should be assigned in a way so as to insure that each group member has something to do in any given week. The task list should then be placed on cs-render. Note that everyone should contribute to some of the tasks, most especially the animation.

  Music students will generally be assigned to each group at about this point. An email group will be established for each group and will be used to maintain communication between animators as well as musicians.

• Shot List: Based on the storyreel, each group will create a written scene/shot list for the animation. Each member of the group will be assigned several of these shots and will be responsible for the making sure they are completed. The shot list should have a form along the lines of

  Scene #	Shot #	Maya Scene File	Reference Files	Length	Start Frame	End Frame	Animator	Description
  1	1	opening.mb	char1.mb, env1.mb	2 sec	1	60	Mary	Opening scene - Frog enters room
  1	2	opening.mb	char2.mb, env1.mb	1 sec	61	90	Frank	Frog jumps on sofa
  1	3	television.mb	char1.mb, env2.mb	5 sec	1	150	Sarah	Frog watches TV
  2	1	kitchen.mb	char1.mb, char2.mb, env3.mb	10 sec	1	300	Mary	Baby frog gets in fridge

  The shot list should be placed on cs-render in the lab 8 group folder for this animation.

• Concept and Reference: As the story is being developed, individuals in the group will begin to work on the look and feel of the characters and scene. Collect or take photos of actual items. Reference materials should be collected and placed on cs-render in the lab 8 group folder for your animation.

• Scene and Props: Once the "look" of the animation has been decided and the reference materials have been collected, work can begin on the scene and prop modeling in Maya. If there are any special effects, the special effects person can start to learn about how to generate them.

• Character Modeling and Motion Testing: Character modeling can also begin once the "look" is decided and reference materials collected. Movement controls need also to be added. Sample motion can be tested.

• Layout/Animatics: Once the characters and props are mostly completed, the group should begin to create the layout/animatics. This will be done in Maya and should focus only on the high level character motion and camera work. There will be many changes made to the animatic so do not waste your time on detailed and time consuming motion that will only have to be redone. As shots of the animatic are completed, they should replace the storyboard image in your Adobe Premier Elements project and a new quicktime file should be generated.

• Timing: Once the animatic is complete, it should be given to the musicians. At this point, YOU CANNOT CHANGE ANY OF THE TIMING of the shots or high level motion without first consulting with the musicians to make sure it won't louse up what they have done so far. Also, let the musicians know how much time will be added for the title and credits so they can plan the music accordingly.

• Editor's Job: As the animatics and animation progresses, there should always be a "latest" quicktime version of the animation available for animators and musicians to view. It is the responsibility of the editor to maintain an Adobe Premiere Project with the latest frames and to render the quicktime. The starting quicktime version is the storyreel. As shots are completed in Maya, the rendered frames need to take the place of the older frames or storyboard image. The editor must keep on top of what the group members have completed. The editor should maintain an "editor" folder which contains 1) the Adobe Premier project and 2) the most current frames (copied over from the Maya image folders). The frames should be organized into subfolders by scenes and shots. The latest quicktime file should be kept in the cs-render group folder in a seprate subfolder called something like "LatestQuicktime". This is where the musicians will go to find the latest verion of the animation.

• Animation: This is the most time intensive part. Everyone in the group should animate the shots they have been assigned. As portions are completed and rendered, they should replace the the appropriate sections in your Adobe Premier project.

• Lighting, Shading, and Textures: As the above tasks are being done, someone in the group can be doing some experimentation with the lighting, shading, and textures. Since the lighting is often so dependent on the animation and camera position, it should not be started in earnest until the animation is complete.

• Title and Credits: Add your title and credits. The title should be no more than a couple of seconds and the credits should be no more than 5 seconds. Be sure to add the names of the musicians. If you have several musicians doing separate scores, then you need to create separate credits for each.

• Rendering: Make sure plenty of time (several days) is allowed to do the final render. Try to make use of the renderfarm.

Organization

All project material, sample images and animations, references, etc for the entire project will be kept on cs-render. See readme.txt for rough idea of what goes in the group folder. In addition to assigning people to the various tasks (story, lighting, shading, etc. ), each group should have a:

• Team Leader: the spokesperson of the group. He/she is responsible for making sure group members know what they should be doing. They are also the one responsible for making sure the musicians know what is going on. If people in the group are not getting along or if people are not pulling their weight, the team leader should try to resolve the problem and, if that doesn't work, let the instructor know. However, any student should feel free to contact the instructor in private if they feel things are not going well.
• Back-up Manager: responsible for frequent back-ups of all the group material on cs-render. Back-ups should be done at least once a week initially, and more frequently as the final deadline approaches. Note, individual group members are also responsible for backing up their individual work more frequently, especially after a long work session.
• The Editor is responsible for making sure Adobe Premier has the latest frames and for creating the new quicktime files when new frames are added to the Adobe project. They should also make sure the musicians know where to find the latest movie file.

Status Reports

Final Deliverables

Group Presentation:The final presentations will be Sat, May 7, 2-5pm :

• Prepare as though you were presenting this work at at SSRD.
• The presentation is included as part of your project grade.
• Each group will have 20-25 minutes plus time for questions.
• The recommended structure is as follows:
  • Prepare slides including a title slide with the name of your animation and the names of all the people in the group, as well as the musicians (their names can be found here.)
  • (only 1-2 minutes!) Introduce musicians and animators. Have each person talk briefly about what they did.
  • Present the completed animations with music.
  • Discuss collaborative process (include key items on a slide).
  • Discuss esthetic choices (include key items on a slide).
  • Discuss challenges (include key items on a slide).
  • Discuss lessons learned (include key items on a slide).

Individual Evaluation: Each individual will turn in a type-written evaluation of what you felt each person in the group contributed, including yourself, (this will be kept completely confidential).

Group Data: Each group should turn in a DVD (or DVDs) containing

1. A copy of the group folder on \\home\cs-render containing all of the files related to the creation of the animation (story, storyreel, references, animatics, Maya, image maps, audio, final tiff files etc, etc). Please include only the final files that were used. That is, remove back-up folders, back-up or old maya files, and all but the final tiff (or other image) and quicktime files.
2. A copy of the music file(s) separate from the animation.
3. The final rendered animations (with the credits and soundtrack). Note, each group should have a version for each of their musicians with the correct music credits!! These should be at least 640x480 in size and saved as a high quality quicktime file.

After you have created the DVD, please check it to make sure that all of the files can be read and/or opened, e.g. images, animations, maya files, etc.

CONGRATULATIONS!!