This course introduces students to the process of animation production. Students learn about story development, story boarding, layout, 3D modeling and animation, character development, cinematography, lighting, and shading using Maya, a state-of-the art 3D rendering software package. Students collaborate in teams with their classmates as well as students in either MUSC 339 Digital Music Techniques, MUSC 121 Creating Music with Technology or MUSC 425 Advanced Digital Music Production to produce a complete animation with original music. Team work and collaboration are critical components of this course.
For a listing of topics, click here
Expectations: Willamette's Credit Hour Policy holds that for every hour of class time there is an expectation of 2-3 hours work outside of lecture where you are engaged in course-related activities. Since our class also meets for 3 hours per week in lab, this policy translates into 3-6 hours of work beyond lecture and lab.
Students are expected to be comfortable using a computer and learning new software. No experience with programming or computer graphics is required. However, please anticipate a very heavy workload, particularly in the second half of the semester, so budget your time accordingly.
Lecture: MWF 12:40am-1:40pm in Ford 202
Lab: MWF 1:50-2:50pm in Ford 202
Additional help: Office hours are listed at
course schedule. In addition, Prof Orr is often in her office and
students are encouraged to stop by any time if they have questions.
Alternatively, feel free to email Prof Orr (gorr) to set up a specific meeting time.
We will have a lab assistant: James Barton (jbarton@willamette.edu) on Wed and Friday.
Class and lab are critical for discussion of material, class critiques, and
collaboration.
Your absence will
will pose significant problems for your individual success and the
success of your collaborators. For these reasons:
Attendance at lectures and labs is required.
Each unexcused absence (class or lab) beyond 5 will lower your final grade
by one grade (A becomes A-, A- becomes B+, B+ becomes B, etc)
Headphones: If you do not already own a set of headphones, then you will need to purchase a set. They do not need to be high quality; any set will do.
Backup Storage: If you do not already have some kind of external storage, you will need to purchase something (e.g. a thumb drive, minimum 1G). This is discussed more below under the Backup section.
Textbook: The required textbooks are
There are also many excellent books on computer animation that may be borrowed from the instructor or from our library. Several books that maybe of particular value are
Software: You will primarily be using the 3D rendering and animation software Autodesk Maya 2014. Maya is installed in a number of labs on campus, including Ford 202. As a student (if you have a decent computer), you can also get a full version for free from here.
Other software you will be using includes:
Lecture time will be used as follows:
First half of the semester: You will work intensively with
Maya to learn the basic techniques of modeling, shading, lighting,
and animation. Labs will be assigned approximately weekly and
instructions
will be available on the class web site. There will be several
assignments working with students in music.
Second half of the semester: You will work entirely on the team animation project. During this time, lecture time will be largely, but not entirely, devoted to review of student work and progress. Lab time will be used for group meetings and coordination - it is very important that you are present for these.
Disk Space: Your H drive will not be sufficient for storing your work. Instead, a separate network server (\\home\cs-render) will be provided. It has the additional advantage that it can be accessed by others in the class (important for team projects) and it is accessible to the renderfarm (important for speeding up your rendering). At the end of the semester, you will be asked to submit all of your Lab 8 work on a DVD (or other format), so don't lose or delete your work!
Back-ups: You should be neurotic about backing up your work. Keep extra copies in multiple places including, your H drive, your home computer, on a thumb drive, and/or on a CD/DVD. When copying to a backup device, make sure your copied Maya files are still readable. If you have not organized your files well it is possible that misc files will be stored in distant locations. Losing a file will rarely be an acceptable excuse for incomplete work.
Critiques and late policy: Assignments will be reviewed and critiqued by the class on the day the assignment is due. As a result, late assignments will be heavily penalized. If you are ill and cannot attend class, then the work you were able to complete should still be available for review on the network server. If you are so ill that you can't get your work on the network, then a written note from the doctor is required. If you are unable to complete the assignment, then turn in whatever you have been able to do. Something is always better than nothing.
If you must miss class due to things such as sports, job interviews, family demands, etc, you are still expected to have your work on the network by the due date of the assignment. In such cases, you will not be penalized if these absences are infrequent.
There are no written exams in this course. Evaluation will be based on the following:
Detailed evaluation sheets will be made available for each lab.
Credit Distribution
Note: Each unexcused absence (class and lab) beyond 5 will lower your final grade
by one grade (e.g. A becomes A-).
Unapproved late assignments are penalized by 50%.
|
50% |
Labs 1-7 (first half of semester) |
|
35% |
individual work on the Lab 8 (final project) including status reports and completing work on time. |
|
15% |
group work on the Lab 8, i.e. overall organization, collaboration, resulting animation. |
It is critical that you backup your work after every work session. Work lost due to your failure to back up files will have to be redone if credit is to be received. If you do not own a flash drive or other similar backup device then you are required to purchase one. It should be several Gigabytes in size. Flash drives are available in the Willamette Bookstore or can be bought online - the cost is about $10 for 16G. Each animation group will also need several blank DVDs (or a flash drive) at the end of class in order to turn in the final work.
In accordance with University policy, if you have a documented disability and require accommodations to obtain equal access to this class, please contact me at the beginning of the semester or when given an assignment for which an accommodation is required. Students must verify their eligibility though the University in order to receive accommodations. The university policies on disability accommodation may be found here.
If you do a search on the web, you will find a significant amount of material on Maya, including already created models and scenes. You are not to use this material without authorization from the instructor. The purpose of this class is to create your own work.
In the context of this class, plagiarism is defined as representing someone else's work as your own. Cheating is defined as violating stated rules for an exam or an assignment. Plagiarized work will receive a grade of 0 as will any assignment in which cheating occurred Generally, you will be encouraged to cooperate on lab assignments. The rules and limitations of this cooperation will be defined in class. (Also see student handbook and college catalogue for more details)
