Hands-on Intensive 4-Week 3D Animation Workshop

In response to the rise in popularity of the medium and the incredible expansion of venues for showcasing the art, the New York Film Academy has designed a hands-on intensive Four-Week 3-D Computer Animation Workshop. This workshop is designed for individuals who want to learn the basics of a high-end 3-D computer program but do not have the time required to devote to full-time study as a year-round student.

Students in the 3-D Computer Animation workshops will write, animate, direct and edit their own computer animated short films. Our animation programs do not require drawing ability. Animation students at the Academy are able to create 3-D characters and environments along the lines of "Shrek."

Preparation

The workshop is designed for students with little or no experience in animation. Regardless of previous experience, each student designs, animates, and completes her or his own personal 3-D computer animated short film.

Format

This course teaches students the principles of animation (movement, timing, weight, character development, etc.) using Maya—the industry standard high-end 3-D computer program. Students progress through basic modeling, motion and rendering exercises en route to the completion of a short 3-D computer animated film (with sound) of their own design by the end of the course.

Topics Covered

a) Screenwriting and Storyboarding
b) Modeling
• Building objects and characters from primitive shapes using polygonal modeling
• Basic nurbs modeling

c) UV Maping
• Introduction to UV's
• Planar maps

d) Materials
Introduction to shaders and textures
• Using hypershade
• Applying textures to models and characters
• Photoshop
• Shaders
• Textures

e) Lighting
• Basic 3 point lighting
• Directional light
• Ambient light
• Spot light
• Depth map shadows

f) Rigging
Introduction to rigging
• Building the skeleton – understanding joints
• Forward and inverse kinematics
• Constraints - they make a characters eye follow an object, a hand pick up a glass
• Skinning - Binding a character to the rig.
• Local rotation axis
• Controllers
• Set driven key
• Blend shapes

g) Animation
Introduction to animation:
• Key frames
• Squash and stretch
• Bouncing a ball
• Walk cycle
• Acting for animators
• Creating animation reference materials
• The graph editor

h) Cameras
• Creating cameras

i) Rendering
• Render - Creating finished images - a sequence of completed frames of your scene to be composited to make the movie for outputting to your editing program

j) Editing and Compositing
• AfterEffects/ Premiere

Animation Topics Covered

This is a labor and time intensive medium. Students should be prepared to work long hours. Students’ success in this program depends on the strength of their animation ideas and their willingness to put in the necessary hours to fully srealize their goals.

The quality of student work has consistently been praised, and students themselves applaud the level of intensity and enjoyment involved in learning. Students have gone on to win prizes at festivals for animated films created at the New York Film Academy.

In the Film Academy 3-D Computer Animation Workshops, classes are held every day, Monday through Friday. Students also learn concepts of story writing, directing, cinematography, and editing as they apply to animation. The bulk of students’ time outside of class is spent in supervised labs. Lab time is used to complete and to expand upon assignments, as well as to work on their final animated films. The students final films are output digitally and projected at a celebratory screening.

Students

Held two times a year in New York City and two times during the summer at our Harvard University location, the Animation program attracts creative students from various backgrounds who have imagination and the fortitude to immerse themselves in an intensive animation experience for four weeks. A love of animation and the ability to work very hard are better predictors for success than technical skills alone. A studio arts background is not necessary for successfully creating 3-D computer animated films. Please try to arrive with story or film ideas clearly formulated in your mind or set down on storyboards.