COURSE DESCRIPTION:

Fundamentals of Animation is the first step to getting a basic understanding of the fundamentals of Animation. This workshop is structured and aimed at teaching a solid foundation of animation principles as well as a basic workflow within Autodesk Maya. Fundamentals of Animation is perfect for those who are are interested in the field of Animation.

The goal of Fundamentals of Animation is to ease into the idea of animation, and slowly build a solid understanding of the 12 principles of animation.

CURRICULUM:

• Class 1 – Introduction to the 12 principles of animation and how they apply to the assignments – Scene set up – Classic ball bounce assignment – Posing assignment emotion (Happy)  Animation Demonstration – 3 Principals (Staging, Arcs, Solid Poses) Basics of Maya -scene set up – Graph Editor basics – Ball bounce demo.
• Class 2 – Pendulum Assignment – Posing assignment emotion (Angry) Animation Demonstration – 2 Principals (Follow Through & Overlapping Action, Slow in& Slow Out) – Pendulum Demo – The importance of reference
• Class 3 – Ball and Tail Assignment – Posing assignment emotion (Sad) Animation Demonstration – 3 Principals (Anticipation, Timing & Motion, Squash & Stretch) Ball and Tail demonstration – Posing demo.
• Class 4 – Combination Ball bounce / Pendulum Review Assignment (Animate both a ball and pendulum interacting with each other in a single scene) Animation Demonstration – Spiderverse Animation Principles Analysis.
• Class 5 – Constraints Assignment – Posing assignment emotion (Disgust) Animation Demonstration – 2 Principals (Straight Ahead & Pose to Pose Action, Exaggeration) – Understanding constraints with a demo.
• Class 6 – Vanilla Walk Cycle Assignment – Posing assignment emotion (Fear) Animation Demonstration – 2 Principals (Secondary Action, Appeal) Walk Cycle Demonstration.
• Class 7 – Finish Vanilla Walk Cycle Assignment Animation Demonstration – In-class lab time – General Reviews
• Class 8 – Start Stylized walk cycle (3 weeks) Emotional pose scene including three characters displaying emotion of your choice (3 weeks) – The assignment is to find or create references and identify critical poses for the walk cycle due the following week.  Animation Demonstration – Looking for key poses in complex mechanics and physics.
• Class 9 – Stylized walk cycle continued – Block out stylized walk cycle – In-Class Lab Animation Demonstration – Animation analysis, student’s choice of film.
• Class 10 – Stylized walk cycle critique – Emotional Pose scene critique – in-class review of each performance and which principals to focus on for future improvement.  Questions about the Animation industry and approaches/game plans for future development.

PREREQUISITE:

We recommend having a basic understanding of Maya before attending Fundamentals of Animation. See our Maya Training for classes designed to teach you the software.

Fundamentals of Animation is limited to 8 students to allow for maximum individualized focus. We encourage a comfortable, collaborative environment so that students can learn from their own assignments, the critiques of others’, instructor demos, lectures, and guest speakers.