CSE 682: Computer Animation

CSE 682 Computer Animation: Design and Production
Rick Parent

Description:
As a capstone design course, it is intended to engage the student in a group activity of an interdisciplinary nature, exercise oral communication skills, and require written documentation of the project. The written documentation will take the form of web pages intended to document the process of designing and producing the computer animation project. Oral communication will consist of a number of progress reports presented to the class by each group as well as a final presentation of the animation to a larger audience.

A single, quarter-long group project is the focus of this course. The project is a student-selected animation project in which students will be repsonsible for designing and producing a computer animation. Much of the group work will take place in CL112D during class hours

Maya is the course software. It is a high-end sofware product that is popular in industry. CS students will be required to learn this sofware and write some type of algorithmic control of motion. Maya has a scripting language as well as an API that can be used for this.

Level and Credits

UG 4

Prerequisites

CSE 581 or CSE 681 (basic knowledge of 3D graphics)

Quarters Offered

General Information, Exclusion, etc.

Class software: Maya and Premier, available in CL112D

Optional Texts:

Complete Maya Programming: An Extensive Guide to MEL and C++ API, by David Gould, Morgan-Kaufmann Publications, San Francisco, 2003.
Computer Animation: Algorithms and Techniques, Second Edition, by Rick Parent, Morgan-Kaufmann Publications, San Francisco, 2007.
Various tutorials and examples are available on-line

Tentative Grading Plan

Inidividual Assignments	10%
Presentations	15%
Documentation	15%
Project	20%
Individual Project Contribution & Participation	40%

Topics - topics will be interleaved; order of topics is dependent on projects selected

Estimated number of Classes	Material
1	Introduction, overview and history of computer animation; it's relation to conventional animation, overview of digital video
2	Technical Background - graphics display pipeline, quaternion math, curve formulations, rendering issues for animation, introduction to interpolation
3	Course software - Maya
3	Various algorithms and techniques - content depends on animation projects selected
3	Viewing of example animations
8	Group work sessions

Projects

Group projects - typically 4 or 5 students.
Project groups are required to keep a web page with storyboard and status of the project including still images and test animations as they are generated, along with descriptions of responsibilities and progress of the group members,
For each group, 4 oral progress reports made by the entire group to the class during the quarter.
This quarter, the project will be a 'Rube Goldberg' mechanism. Constraints of the aniamtion (e.g. start and stop requirements) will be discussed in class.

Project progress reports and approximate timing

Week 2	Proposed storyboard
Week 4	Final storyboard, sample still images
Week 6	Timing of sequences, sample stills, sample low-res animation
Week 8	Sample final high-res animation, storage and time requirements of final rendering
Finals week	Final presentation of animation to class, hand in animation on DVD