Our One-Year 3D Animation Program is a comprehensive training in 3D using Alias’ Oscar Winning software, Maya, the industry standard for animation. Students in the Academy’s One-Year 3D Animation Program get the opportunity to learn the technical and artistic tools they need to master 3D animation. After the program, they may choose to become independent animators or to pursue a career in the film, gaming, interactivity or commercial industries.

Preparation

No previous 3D or animation experience is required. However, studio art or computer experience is helpful. Basic familiarity with a computer graphic program such as Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Photoshop is recommended. The Maya Personal Learning Edition is available for free download at Autodesk.com. Students are encouraged to familiarize themselves with this software.

Semester one Overview

Over the course of the first semester, students learn Maya intensively through instruction and extensive lab hours. Students are instructed in all basic and primary techniques in animation production.

Each week, classic and contemporary animated films are screened and critiqued with the instructor. This informs the students’ own work and helps them as they write and storyboard projects for production during the semester.

Animation Goals
• Visual Development
• Writing and Storyboarding
• 3D Modeling
• Texturing
• Rigging
• Animation
• Lighting
• Rendering

Students complete two short animated projects in semester one. The first project takes place during the first month and is designed to familiarize the student with the animation work flow from inception to completion. The second project is completed during the remainder of the first semester and expands upon the principles, skills and, knowledge used for the first project.

MAYA: With 23 million lines of code, is extraordinarily power ful 3D animat ion software. Animated films such as A.I., Harry Potter, The Lord of The Rings Trilogy, The Matrix Trilogy, Shrek Trilogy, Spiderman Trilogy and Star Wars: Episode I, II & III are made using Maya. Additionally, most of the popular computer games are made with Maya, including Madden Football, SOCOM: US Navy Seals, F.E.A.R., Lineage, Gears of War, Armies of Exigo and Forza Motorsport. In our One-Year 3D Animation Program, students get the unprecedented opportunity to get the technical tools they need to do whatever they want to do in 3D.

The following topics will be covered in depth:

SCRIPT WRITING
• Students learn how to write a story.

STORYBOARD
• Students learn how to take their script and translate it into a visual medium

MODELING

Introduction to
• Polygonal modeling
• Subdivision modeling
• Nurbs modeling

Advanced
• Polygonal modeling

SHADERS

Introduction to shaders and textures
• Using the hypershade
• Applying textures to models and characters
• Photoshop, Shaders, Bump mapping
• Making animated textures in AfterEffects.

Intermediate shaders and textures
• Import movies as textures
• Shading networks
• Hypershade in-depth
• Tiling textures
• Advanced bump maps
• Displacement mapping
• Introduction to utility nodes

UV MAPPING

Introduction to UV’s
• UV’s
• Planar maps

ADVANCED UV’s

Tools
• Automatic maps
• Spherical maps
• Cylindrical maps
• Unfold
• Relax
• Moving and sewing UV’s

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FIRST SEMESTER CLASS DESCRIPTIONS

Screenwriting
This class is designed to help students develop their scripts for their animation. It focuses on the fundamentals of visual storytelling and provides students with constructive analysis and support as they take a story from initial idea, treatment, step outline to a rough draft, storyboard and animatic. The intersection of story structure, theme, character, tension, and conflict is examined through detailed scene analysis.

Modeling
These classes cover the geometry of the model and how to use various techniques to create the best topology. We look at how the workflow between nurbs, polygonal and subdivision modeling is used in the industry.

Creative techniques in organic modeling is the primary focus of this class.

UV maping
In this series of classes, we look at creating the correct and appropriate UV maps for a model, which results in placing seamless and smooth textures on the model.

Materials and Textures
Students learn how the observation and understanding of an object’s surface qualities can create photo realistic textures. Using Photoshop and paint effects, realistic and viable textures are created for models.

Specularity, reflection and the diffuse qualities of surfaces are investigated to produce the correct surface properties.

Procedural shaders using advanced networks are utilized to create believable and economical renders.

rigging
Creating joints and controllers is the focus of these rigging classes. Students will learn to create skeletons that will behave predictably in Maya. Forward and inverse kinematics are discussed. Other topics include joint placement and orientation, the importance of local rotation axis, and joint rotation order.

Lighting
The various properties of the many lights within Maya are fully explained within the context of 3 point and advanced lighting. The importance of shadows and their use to create realism is explored.

Animation
This series of lectures introduce the students to character animation. Students will learn to apply the basic principals of animation to many different objects to create characters that have both dynamic movement and weight. We use the graph editor and time line to set key frames and manipulate them in time and space, while developing an understanding of how to adjust the tangents and other tools in the graph editor to create exciting animations.

Acting for Animation
In this series of classes, we take full advantage of the wonderful and richly talented skills of the acting staff here at the Academy. Students learn the fundamentals of acting essential to the animator’s skills in, developing the idiosyncrasies of a character and its behavior in movement and speech.

Dynamics
Used extensively in movie vfx, dynamic simulations attempt to replicate real world dynamic systems such as water flow, tornadoes, rain, snow and fire.

MEL SCRIPTING
Through Mel scripting, students are introduced to the world of scripting. Programming concepts such as loops, global procedures and variables will be explored.     Continue >>

SECOND SEMESTER CLASS DESCRIPTIONS

POST-PRODUCTION
After the production period, students composite and edit their films. Compositing is done in Shake and After Effects. Students can also choose to edit digitally on a Final-Cut Pro station. They screen rough-cuts of their projects for the instructor and classmates and receive feedback before presenting their finished films to an invited audience at the end of the course. Throughout the post-production period, the animation and editing staff is available for consultation.

Students finish their films with a digital sound mix on the computer. Some students choose to do more elaborate sound work and take their projects to a professional sound mix. The goal for each student is to complete a professional quality animation by the end of the semester.

MENTAL RAY
To create photorealistic images, many commercial animation companies use Mental Ray. In this series of classes taught by industry specialist and author Boaz Livny, students accumulate the tools they need for entry into the industry.

NURBS MODELING
Nurbs modeling is used extensively in the film industry for organic modeling and in commercial houses for hard surface product design. Students learn the basics of this demanding subject.

ADVANCED RIGGING
This class is a continuation of the first semester rigging classes.