Friday, September 9, 2011

Character Acting -- 1st Assignment:

Assignment 1: 
Anatomy Study: Human
Assigned: Sept 7th
Due: Sept 26th
% of Final Grade: 10%
Please keep file sizes under 2MB
Filename:
tdonovan_anatomy_001.jpg

Description:
Choose one joint and draw an in-depth study of it from several angles, including its major function, attachments of muscles, and significant features.  Include notes to clarify significant details.

These Da Vinci drawings should inspire you to show your understanding in an visually interesting way. Aim to make your drawing a portfolio piece that shows both your knowledge and your artistic skill.

Rubric:
Exemplary - thorough study including many drawings and detailed notes explaining most of the features of the joint
Excellent - several clear drawings with notes demonstrating a thorough understanding of the joint
Acceptable - some simple drawings of key features with some notes indicating a basic understanding of the joint
Not Acceptable - sparse detail and volume indicating a lack of in-depth understanding of the joint

Hand-in details will be given in class.

Any questions, just ask!

Monday, September 5, 2011

WEEK 1: Animation Direction 1


Welcome to Animation Direction 1!
Please have a look at the outline for the course and familiarize yourself with the academic policies.

Concept art from Machinarium
Animation Direction gives you a chance to create a gameplay sequence straight from your own imagination. From concepts and storyboarding to character design and animation you'll  try out many of the roles in a professional game pipeline. 


We'll be doing a lot of drawing in this course so always bring sketchpads and pencils.  Later on we'll be shooting some video reference to guide the animation process. 


Machinarium final artwork







WEEK 1: Character Acting 1

Welcome to Character Acting 1!
Please have a look at the outline for the course and familiarize yourself with the academic policies.

We're going to do a ton of drawing, acting, fighting (!), and other fun stuff in this class. Please dress for action & always bring your drawing materials. Video analysis is a large part of this course. Bring a camera & tripod if you have one.

A major focus of a course called "Character Acting" is, obviously, acting...
We'll do a lot of improv to shake off our shyness and progress to detailed acting scenes by the end of the course.

For further study, try drop-in Improv Acting at The Black Swan (blackswancomedy.com) or take a course at Impatient Theatre or Second City.  There are open figure drawing classes nearly every day of the week in Toronto, such as at the Gladstone Hotel, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto School of Art, and The Academy of Art.

Keep records of everything you do that supports this course -- it will all become useful for your portfolio.

WEEK 1: Texturing & Shading 1

Welcome to Texturing and Shading 1!
Please have a look at the outline for the course and familiarize yourself with the academic policies.
Please sign in at every class.

For our first class we'll delve into the basic concepts of Texturing and start UV'ing.  By the end of this class you should have a basic grasp of UV'ing and working with the UV editor.

For more information, try the excellent Digital Tutors* content such as, "Getting Started with UV's in 3DS Max" and read through the article, "Texturing for Dummies" by Leigh Van der Byl. See also the video tutorial we covered in class, "UVW Basics" at http://game.georgebrown.ca/~pbonner/ts1/uvw_basics.mov.

Here's the new version of the tutorial updated for 3dsMax2012:
http://game.georgebrown.ca/~tdonovan/movies/uv1_2012.mov


RE: New features in 3DSMax2012!!
You may have noticed the contrast between the way the UV editing tools look in the tutorials on Digital Tutors and Phil's tutorial. Autodesk has significantly overhauled the UV editing tools & the UI in 3DS Max 2012 which just came out this summer. Here is a video explaining the major new updates. Please have a look as most helpful tutorials will still be in 2010 or 2011 and to make use of them you might need to understand the changes.

http://download.autodesk.com/us/3dsmaxproducts/features2012/3ds_max_2012_enhanced_unwrapping_1300x780.html

*Everyone has a Digital Tutors group account through George Brown College.
Any questions, please ask!

Note: the first assignment will begin next week. For the time being please practice UV'ing primitives.