Wednesday, September 4, 2013

WEEK 1: Game Project Development DESN 3010

Welcome to Game Project Dev 3!
Please remember to sign in at each class.
This is a portfolio-building class that will give you time to complete your own pieces and to get feedback from industry pros. You could find yourself working on a game here at school or in the industry.
This class is strictly a work period and no lectures or formal instruction will be given aside from one-on-one critiques. Use your time productively so you don't fall behind or distract students around you. You will not be permitted to use this lab for gaming or web surfing except at designated breaks.

Your grade will be the cumulative total of 5 assignments DUE IN CLASS, each worth 20%.
All the assignments are your own choice but must be approved by me to receive a grade.

Milestone 1:  ex 5-10 second piece of animation. Value: 20%
DUE DATE: WEEK 4 Sept 26th @ BEGINNING OF CLASS
* Late submissions will receive ZERO marks.
In-class you would want to show:
WEEK 2: thumbnails
WEEK 3: rough posing in 3D
WEEK 4: final animation - Playbasts are fine. No rendering required.

FILE NAMING:
3010_ m1_lastnamefirstinitial_001.mov (mov, m4v, mpeg, etc)
ex: 3010_m1_donovant.mov

Please read my post about file sizes, aspect ratios and codecs. We will go over this in class.
We will be using a few tools to simulate a professional animation workflow. Please check email regularly for invites to shared folders and applications you may need to join for this class.


What types of pieces should you create? Well, SHORT ONES. Keep it simple. You should animate 20-30 short pieces over the year or two if you can for practice and expand on the ones you like best. By the end of term you should have 5 pieces of 5-10 second of animation or concept work.

some great ideas to get you started. 
Avoid obvious noob mistakes like having obnoxious content or a style so niche that would only appeal to one tiny studio. The rest is common sense -
-keep it short 30-90 seconds MAX - <2 min if you're a professional.
-only show your best work - be ruthless and cut everything that doesn't quite work
-make each character unique in their movements and personality
-try to find new rigs
-show your range


WEEK 1: Asset Development 1 DESN1083

Welcome to Asset Development 1
Please remember to sign in at each class.
This is a portfolio-building class that will give you time to complete your own pieces and to get feedback from industry pros. You could find yourself working on a game here at school or in the industry.
This class is strictly a work period and no lectures or formal instruction will be given aside from one-on-one critiques. Use your time productively so you don't fall behind or distract students around you. You will not be permitted to use this lab for gaming or web surfing except at designated breaks.
Hey, isn't that a Beretta 92?

Examples of weapon design thumbs
Your grade will be the cumulative total of 4 assignments DUE IN CLASS.

Assignment 1:
Beretta Preliminary Concept Art: 25 marks
DUE DATE: WEEK 7 Sept 26th 
@ BEGINNING OF CLASS
* Late submissions will receive ZERO marks.
Develop a gun concept based on the Beretta 92 semi-automatic pistol.
a) Thumbnails - Produce minimum 6 thumbnail sketches focusing heavily on silhouette designs.
b) Revised Thumbnails - Incorporate various characteristics from the first iteration of
thumbnails in a 2nd design pass, produce minimum 3 revised thumbnail sketches.
c) Rough Sketch - Pick at least 1 of the revised thumbnails and develop the concept further in
a more detailed design pass.

DELIVERABLES:
PSD SOURCE FILES, JPG 
2348(W) X 1280(H) pixels 72dpi
REFERENCE: BERETTA 92 (or 96 and 98)
FILE NAME: 
1083_a1_lastnamefirstinitial.psd
1083_a1_lastnamefirstinitial_a.jpg
1083_a1_lastnamefirstinitial_b.jpg
1083_a1_lastnamefirstinitial_c.jpg

ex -
1083_a1_donovant.psd
1083_a1_donovant_a.jpg





Monday, September 2, 2013

WEEK 1: Motion Studies DESN1136


Welcome to Motion Studies!
Please remember to sign in at every class.
Have a look at the outline for the course and familiarize yourself with the 
Concept art from Machinarium


academic policies.
Motion Studies continues your animation study by focusing first on the production methods used to create animated sequences. From concepts and character designs to story boards and finally animation you'll try out many of the roles in a professional animation pipeline.

For the first 7 weeks of this course we will focus exclusively on DRAWING so always bring sketchpads and pencils. Later on we'll be shooting some video reference to guide the animation process.

There are 9 Assignments for this course due weekly or bi-weekly. 
Machinarium final artwork

Assignment 1:

DESN1136 Assignment 1 Rubric
Concept Design
% of final grade: 20%
Assigned: Tuesday, Sept 3rd
Due: Tuesday, September 24th IN CLASS
Character designs from Machinarium
*Late assignments are worth 0


Please work in PSD in high resolution but SUBMIT  only JPGs following the image formatting guidelines from this post.


Filenames:

1136_a1_donovant_char_001.jpg
1136_a1_donovant_env_001.jpg
1136_a1_donovant_stry_001.jpg
1136_a1_donovant_stbd_001.jpg


Description:
Create a concept pack for a virtual independent game complete with design sketches for the character and environment, a story outline, and one story boarded sequence. The sequence should be planned around the walk, run, and jump cycles to be animated in the second half of the course. It should show how the character will interact with the environment. Drawings need not be clean but they should be clear, dynamic, and detailed.

Keep your ideas simple. The graphic style should be very easy to sketch so all your ideas can be presented within the allotted time. Consider that you will be one modeling and rigging the character when you design it. Click here for a detailed description of this assignment