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HOMEWORK AND ASSIGNMENTS

Homework 1: In Motion

Using the animation, dynamics, and deformation tools and techniques shown in class so far, create a scene/ animation that may be incorporated into your final project. You will need to turn in your project (that directory) as well as a rendered video (at least 30 seconds in length, 720 x 480. .mov or .avi).

Keep your lighting and texturing basic, and focus your creative energy on the orchestration of movement in your scene. Do not use rigging yet (unless you are familiar with it), but rather use hierarchical grouping and constraints in combination with keying in the timeline in order to control movement. Remember to approach your animation modularly - ie, layering in more detailed movements after you have established your basic blocking. Be sure to cache nDynamics simulations regularly and bake rigid body simulations once you are satisfied with the action.

Homework: Project Description

Write: your 400 word (at least) description of your final project should describe in detail the environment and animation you wish to create. Remember: this is a virtual world you are creating so any limitations on scale and sophistication of the space (even the direction of gravitational pull) should be very conscious choices. You aren't limited by money - so don't make generic material choices!

Give explicite, direct references (the names of the artists, set designers, designers, etc) in your description to designers, architects, or artists who work in a similar vien. Add at least 2 - 3 images (photographs or stlls) from outside sources (books, digital images, magazine images) to this description that provide clear illustration of the overall style, color scheme, lighting scheme, and general 'feel' that you are going for. Include these elements:

• Are you looking for collaborators? If so, on which aspects of the project?

• Include your final video from Maya I (if applicable) as well as 2-3 renders from that piece if you wish to continue with that environment.

• Describe the feel of the environment, ie, is the space contemporary or futuristic or rustic? Within that genre, got into specifics about the context. Set the scene for us. This should read something like the opening of a script or a stage setting.

• Describe the materials - ie, wood, metals, plastic, glass, etc. Be specific! Velvet vs felt, granite vs lava rock, etc. Be prepared to discuss/ defend your material choices - expecially if you are an industrial design major.

Overall I am looking for you to be original + thoughtful here and to genuinely take chances. Again, because you are designing this yourself, there is no reason why your environments or design objects should look 'generic'. They should look like they come from you, as the artist/ designer who is an up and coming author and artistic director.

Assignment 1: Still Life with Materials

Using your Homework 1 sketches and description, concentrate on creating the best atmospheric lighting and shadows for the space and its surfaces. Start applying appropriate materials to the objects in your scene - i.e., ray tracing on glass, subtle bump maps on walls, blinns for plastic, shiny surfaces, etc.

Using techniques of Polygon and poly proxy mudding continue to fill out your complex environment. You should be building an environment (or an object in a specific context) that relates a full experience. As such, this assignment requires that you not only pay attention to rendering large spaces, but also to modeling/ rendering those detailed areas that bring that place to life and make it specific to your imagination and design aesthetic (i.e., anything but generic). In your environment you should include models previously created for Still Life with Material, but ONLY as a starting to the work for this assignment - I expect to see the space and objects in it as not just recognizable, but detailed now. For this assignment, at least 4 completed new models (not just primitives or stand ins). The full background "setting" of your scene should be clear. Put in a billboard background (textured poly plane) or textured dome. Use depth of field in your renders. Make 12 renders (in TIF or TGA format, alpha channel off if not needed) that will now serve as the storyboard or 'key frames" of your final camera fly through. Consider how you introduce the space/ objects to your audience through interesting camera work. Post your storyboard to the google+ class circle and hand it in into the class drop folder.

• Use one of these storyboard templates, complete with comments describing the scene / shot contents.
Storyboard language
Basic Example
Template 1
Template 2
Template 3
Template 4
Template 5

Homework 2: Scene Illustrations / Sketches

Finish (2) full color, polished renders of your project's main focus (object or character) and (3) renders of your scene. Five renders are due in all. Illustrate the front and side of your character/ object. Render the top, front, and side of your scene/ environment. Use this assignment to fully conceptualize your project's look and elements. You've got a week - so these illustrations should look portfolio-ready (ie, ready to present in your portfolio). Model any characters in bind pose.

Assignment 2: Particle Motion

Create a short motion sequence (1 minute min length) using dynamics. This work can be applied towards your final project development. Make sure to include some of the following Dynamics techniques that have been introduced since the last assignment: nParticles, nCloth, XGen Primitives, Fields, and Collisions, etc. Some tips for success:- build up the layers of your effects one at a time, test early and often, make sure when running your dynamics to always start at the beginning of your timeline, and always set it to Play Every Frame, cache your dynamics effects! Complete a real render of this - as shown in class - not a playblast. Give yourself plenty of time for the rendering - using the renderfarm is highly suggested. Hand in both your project folder and your .avi or .mov file.

Assignment 3: Rigged Motion System

Finesse your character's (or object's) skeleton rig and use it to make a fully rendered animation of 45 seconds or more. This should be a scene from your final project. Use Set Driven Keys and Inverse Kinematics. One of the objectives of this assignment is to get you to think through the unique movement requirements that your character/ object will have and to make sure that you develop a rig system that suits those requirements. Make sure to design your rig in a way that you can really use it! Also, skin your geometry to the rig. For the critique day you will need to:

1. Demo your animation rig from a Maya scene file: show us how the controls you make work and how they function to control the skeleton in a sophisticated way.
2. Show us your 45+ sec lit, textured + fullly rendered animation: inventively portray an action - ie, not just a generic walk cycle.

FINAL PROJECT

Extra Credit

For Extra credit:

1 Create, in a separate scene, an object that has a two sided texture where one side is glowing (as found in the lamp tutorial). Hand in the scene files and the render.

— and, or —

2 Create an object that emits a tv glow + glowing image (as found in the computer monitor tutorial on the server). Hand in the scene files and the render.

If you want Extra, Extra credit:
Prepare a 5 - 10 minute demo for the class on a tutorial that relates to one of these lighting/ rendering/ texturing issues - on a subject that hasn't been already covered in class. Email me in advance to let me know the content demo you plan to do - and I'll send you an OK back.