1. Spring 2015: 3D Animation Project requirements 1

2. First of all … I am here to help you. So please come to class, start early, and let me help get you through the process of tackling a complex piece of software! 2

3. Overview  Attendance required – people who do not come to class tend to create not-very-good projects!  One assignment: an architectural scene  Indoor or outdoor  Complete  Elegant  Due date: the final exam slot for the class  Video – 1 to 3 minutes 3

4. you will need Autodesk Maya: students.autodesk.com A video clip maker: MPEG Streamclip, Compressor, or Quicktime Legacy (Pro) a video editor: for adding sound to video and for editing multiple clips a sound editor (maybe) an image editor for manipulating materials/textures 4

5. The Video  Make a one to three minute video rendered as avi, wmv, mov, or mpeg4. Your video must be playable on one of:  Quicktime  VLC http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html on a Mac or Windowshttp://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html  Make your video tell a story. Something begins, continues for a while, and then has an ending. There needs to be a point to why we are watching your video, something (however simple) must unfold.  There must be a complete environment, with animation and sound  Use at least 1240 by 960 pixels; anything smaller will not look good.  Use a high level of anti-aliasing. 5

6. Hand in  A data (not a playable) DVD or flash key containing…  Your entire project folder, minus only the individual images you rendered for your video. (These images should be the only thing that makes your project folder big.  Your video – no larger than a gigabyte.  During the first 10 seconds of your video, display: Intro to Animation, Spring 2015, Joe Cool (except plug in your own name…)  Test your DVD or flash key to make sure it is readable!  You can also put your zipped up project with your video on the web for me to download - please make it all one zipped folder. 6

7. Importing content you can import textures and bumpmaps for textures You can use outside sound data for your soundtrack You can use content from the Maya “Visor” But only for minor content The visor material cannot be what our eyes are drawn to – it can only be for secondary modeling and can take up only a very small part of your rendered frames No importing of models done by any other individual; ALL modeling in the primary part of your scene must be your own 7

8. Primary goal: build an entire environment  The two most important criteria are  Careful, deliberate modeling  Careful, clean application of materials and textures – and bumpmaps  Please do not mimic any models or scenes from a video, game, movie, etc., etc. Create your own models!  Work from reference images from the real world  Do all your modeling in Maya  Use at least 1240 by 960 pixels; anything smaller will not look good. 8

9. Important For your storyline You need a modeling and story inspiration Consider storyboards Focus on modeling, materials, lights, and rendering, and not on animation and sound! 9

10. Resources the ATLAS lab machines should have maya premiere final cut pro Compressor Photoshop Audition Also, remember the following are free: Mpeg streamclip for testing animation (but NOT for final renderings) : http://www.squared5.comhttp://www.squared5.com fCheck for testing animation (but NOT for final renderings) GIMP image editor: http://www.gimp.orghttp://www.gimp.org Audacity sound editor: http://audacity.sourceforge.nethttp://audacity.sourceforge.net iMovie 10

11. Required components please read carefully – I will look for these in your project  Materials and textures  No raw textures placed directly on objects  Using textures as the color of materials  Using textures as bumps map of materials  Use at least one instance of glass or some other transparent object  Use the mental ray Sun and Sky or homemade sun and sky if it is an outdoor scene – no backdrops  Seamlessly tile-able textures  At least one layered texture created outside of Maya 11

12. Required components, cont  A nonlinear deformer or a blendshape  Carefully engineered lighting/shadows/materials - and keep in mind they are inter-dependent, with everything scaled and tiled properly  Your own cameras and lights – not the defaults!  Raytraced renderings  Shadows that root objects in the scene and with respect to each other  Renderings with at least the resolution of1240 by 960 pixels and a high level of antialiasing 12

13. Required components, cont. Budget time to do materials right No tiling seams showing No unevenly scaled textures that should be the same granularity all over a given part of an object No materials that do not fit the nature of the models they are applied to Remember bump maps and layered materials are key Material and textures scaled like the real world 13

14. Required components, cont.  Put the components of your models into hierarchies, using the Outliner  Rename objects logically, including lights and materials and cameras  Modeling make at least one object using:  NURBS bottom up geometry – using lines to create surfaces (extrusion, lofting, revolving), stitching, sculpting  Polygon modeling – using extrusion, push and pull, and component-based modeling, extrusion, sculpting 14

15. Required components, cont  Smoothing, using one or more of:  The Smooth tool  Manipulating normals  Soft translation (move)  Beveling  Animation, use one of  Motion path  keyframing  Use at least one of  A dynamics effect  A hard (or soft) body collision  Cloth and a field *** and you need to build these from scratch and not used canned Maya content or canned dynamics effects from the Main Menus *** 15

16. Working from reference images  Use photos of the objects you are going to model  To help you get proportions right  To help you give your models realistic details  To help you put realistic materials on your models  But don’t mimic someone else’s models – mimic things in the real world only 16

17. MOST IMPORTANT 2 points! Photorealism & Leaving time for rendering 17