Syllabus for 598A - Spring 99

The hard part

Projects. The seminar has 3 projects, each of which should involve teams of 2 to 4 people. The first is a three-week animation project, aiming to race through the production pipeline to produce a 10-second animation. The goals of this project are to quickly learn about the process of creating an animation using today's technology. The second project is a three-week technology project where each team investigates some new technology that would be helpful for creating animations. The third project is a longer (six-week) animation project, where teams create a longer (20-30 second) animation. The goals of this project are to incorporate new technologies developed in the second project, to visit the production pipeline in more depth (e.g. better final lighting and rendering), and to tell a more complete story.

Presentations. During the semester, each participant will make two 15-minute presentations: either two technology presentations or one technology and one art presentation. The technology presentations (marked 'T' below) report on some technical paper or papers, or just some overview of technology. The art presentations (marked 'A' below) present some new medium or style of animation or try to tie some elements together from different animations. Hopefully we watch lots of interesting animations for the art part.


Calendar

WEEK 1
T,  Feb.  2: (AF) Overview, Animation Pipeline
Th, Feb.  4: (AF) Pipeline, Principles of Animation, Highlights of NPR

WEEK 2
T,  Feb.  9: Storyboard Review, Sign-up day
Th, Feb. 11: Presentations: (Modeling)
		T: Surface Reps (funk->af), 
		T: Warps and Deformations (milliron), 
		A: Stop Motion, Clay, Nightmare (af) 

WEEK 3
T,  Feb. 16: Presentations: -- Modeling
		T: Acquisition (tsanocki)
		T: Subdivision (emilp)
		A: Stop Motion Setup (benshedd)
Th, Feb. 18: Presentations: -- Modeling?
		T: Sketch (wxd)
		T: NPR (wilmotli)
		A: Abstraction (milliron)

WEEK 4
T,  Feb. 23: Presentations: Articulation -- T:achtermn, T:zhiyan, A:rodgers
		Shape Interpolation, inbetweens
Th, Feb. 25: Final Animation Review

WEEK 5
T,  Mar.  2: Technology Idea Review
Th, Mar.  4: Presentations: Articulation -- T:cgeorges, T:btfujito, A:lenap
		Avars

WEEK 6
T,  Mar.  9: Presentations: Animation -- T:lenap, T:zhiyan, A:wilmotli
		Simulation, Kinematics, Inverse Kinematics, Space-time constraints, 
		Motion capture, Motion reuse and alteration
Th, Mar. 11: class canceled

WEEK 7 -- SPRING BREAK

WEEK 8
T,  Mar. 23: Finished Technology Review
Th, Mar. 25: Presentations: Animation -- T:tsanocki, T:wailee, A:kdmukai

WEEK 9
T,  Mar. 30: class canceled
Th, Apr.  1: Storyboard Review

WEEK 10
T,  Apr.  6: Presentations: Shading -- T:waingan, T:kdmukai, A:apleamon
		Texture maps, procedural shading, bump maps, displacement maps,
		shading languages, noise functions
Th, Apr.  8: Presentations: Shading -- T: wxd, T:aclipski, A:achtermn

WEEK 11
T,  Apr. 13: Art and Model Review
Th, Apr. 15: Presentations: Shading -- T:rodgers, T:btfujito, A:cgeorges

WEEK 12
T,  Apr. 20: Presentations: Lighting and Rendering -- T:aclipski, T:emilp, A:tsanocki
		Raytracing, Radiosity, Scan-conversion and fancy tricks, 
		Shadows and reflections, NPR
Th, Apr. 22: class canceled

WEEK 13
T,  Apr. 27: Shading and Lighting Review
Th, Apr. 29: Presentations: Lighting and Rendering -- T:min, T:apleamon, A:waingan

WEEK 14 -- READING PERIOD

WEEK 15
May 11 (Dean's Date): Final Animation Review  ... has been moved by popular demand to: 

WEEK 16
May 18 Final Animation Review