COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This informational animation workshop consists of in-depth lectures and corresponding LIVE demos (in Autodesk Maya), in addition to Q&A time. The Demo & Lecture workshop starts with examples and demos of the foundations of a simple animated exercise – the bouncing ball. The workshop progresses to animated exercises and shots of increasing levels of challenge for the animator. 

This course teaches a layered approach to animating and keeping a clean workflow. It helps many students to realize and correct where they’ve picked up bad habits in their animation workflow, as well as showing every step of the process, live in Autodesk Maya. The course offers lectures and techniques for handling common and unusual animation challenges. The instructors will discuss animation techniques, Graph Editor workflow, Tips & Tricks (Scripts/Hotkeys/Maya Setup). Students are shown examples and breakdowns of the instructor’s work, as well as examples of other animators’ work, to demonstrate different shot progressions and thought process. All to help answer the common questions, “How do you do it?” and “Why do you do it that way?”

Demo & Lecture has proven to be an eye-opener for students eager to learn how the professionals tackle animation in a feature film setting. We have had an outpouring of positive feedback from past and current students. This workshop does not require any extra time commitment outside of class – there are no assignments. As such, this workshop does not offer individual critique of student work. In addition to the lectures and demos given, students are provided with notes and handouts from the lectures so that they can spend less time writing notes and more time digesting the concepts shown.

CURRICULUM:

Demos:

• • LIVE Demonstrations
  • Bouncing Ball
  • Simple Jump
  • Complex Ball with Legs jump. (From platform to a boat)
  • Complicated Human Physical Shot (Run, Jump, Grab, Flip and Land)
  • 1-Person Acting Shot 

Lectures:

• • Planning and Thought Process
  • Graph Editor
  • Brows
  • Eyes
  • Mouth and Dialogue
  • Creature Animation (Quadrapeds guest speaker Kevin O’hara)
  • Polish
  • Michal’s preferred Workflow & Shot Breakdowns
  • Other ANimation Workflows (Straight Ahead, Layered, Pose-to-pose)
  • Timing
  • Specificity
  • Performance, Acting, and philosophy (we touch upon 20 mini subjects within this lecture)

PREREQUISITE:

All animation skill levels are welcome, but a basic understanding of animation principles and Autodesk Maya at at least a beginner level is strongly recommended.