Guest speaker coming on Wednesday
Hey UCBUGGers,
This Wednesday, there's a special guest speaker coming to Cal. Tarek Elaydi is a graduate both of Cal and of the Gnomon School of Visual Effects. He has worked at PDI/Dreamworks and currently works at EA Vancouver, and on Wendesday, he'll be coming to Berkeley to talk about his experiences. If you can make it, we highly encourage you to come--his talk will be held from 5-6:30pm in 373 Soda.
See you then,
-- Daniel R.
UPDATE: The talk will now be held in 373 Soda, NOT 380 Soda.
Lucasfilm CTO Talk
Hey everybody,
This Tuesday (April 7), we have a very special guest coming to campus. Richard Kerris, the Chief Technology Officer of Lucasfilm, will be giving a talk from 12pm-1pm in Sibley Auditorium (located in the Bechtel Engineering Center) as part of the "View From the Top" lecture series. You can read more about him and the event here:
http://events.berkeley.edu/index.php/calendar/sn/coe.html?event_ID=15663...
This is a really exciting opportunity to get a look at the state-of-the-art in graphics/animation technology and get a glimpse at future innovations from the Lucas companies. If you can make it, we strongly encourage you to come.
See you there,
-- Daniel R.
Pixar Infosession!
I promised you an update on this when we last had class, so here it is:
Pixar will be coming to campus for an infosession this Wednesday, April 1. Their presentation will be held in the HP Auditorium (306 Soda) at 6pm. The Pixar representatives are all Cal grads, so don't be too hard on them :) They also plan to leave plenty of time to answer questions, so come prepared to inquire about internship/job opportunities, etc.
Pixar will also be holding on-campus interviews the following Wednesday (April 8) for TD/software engineer interns/residents, as well as for the Pixar Undergraduate Program (PUP). Don't worry if you missed the online application deadline for any of these positions; as a Cal student, you're still eligible for an on-campus interview. Pixar recruiting will be screening applicants based on their resumes--and possible on their demo reels--to determine who they'll interview. I'm sure they'll talk more about this at the infosession on Wednesday, but I just wanted to give everyone a heads up in case you need to brush up your resume.
As for a demo reel, don't stress about it. I have it on good authority that the resume is the most critical thing. If you already have one, great. If you have time to make one, focus on quality over quantity. A great 30 second reel is better than a mediocre 4 minute reel. You can take a look at Pixar's own advice for demo reel creation here: http://www.pixar.com/companyinfo/jobs/howto.html.
That's it. I hope to see everyone there on Wednesday!
-- Daniel R.
Homework 8 - Shading to the Extreme
First off, I would like to wish all of you a great spring break. Enjoy your time off. The assignment due next class will be a simple shading assignment. Either shade a model from your animation, or shade a primitive polygon, such as a sphere. We want to see more than just one basic shader, so make sure to add plenty of layers.
When submitting your work to ucbugg@gmail.com, make sure to attach your Maya file and the texture files (if any) that you used. If you don't, we won't be able to see your beautiful work.
Homework 7 - Character Animation, etc.
Hey everybody,
This week, we'd like you to build off of the work you did in class today and create a simple animation with the Bloke rig. Something like jumping, waving, or (if you feel ambitious), walking. This is a great opportunity for you to practice animation principles like exaggeration and secondary motion, and it can also give you a great idea of what feature/functions you feel like you need in your character rigs.
Speaking of which: Some groups have a lot of sets/props to model, so we understand if some of that still needs finishing up. However, this week, we'd really like to see people start on some rigging (if you haven't already). It can be a time-consuming process, so it's best to get going sooner rather than later.
Send you Bloke animations and any other work you do this week to ucbugg@gmail.com. As always, don't hesitate to email your facilitator/schedule time to meet in person if you run into problems.
See you next week!
-- Daniel R.
Homework 6
Hey everybody,
It seems like people are really starting to get into serious production on their animations. Because of this, homework assignments from here on out will generally be a little less structured than they were earlier in the semester.
This week, we'd like you to work on modeling and rigging. Some of you have projects that demand more in the way of sets and props; members of your group can work on those. Some of you have multiple characters or very detailed, difficult-to-model characters--if those aren't done yet, get them finished up. For those of you with finished character models, you might like to start rigging them. It's a good idea to check with your facilitator first and see if they think your model is ready to rig. And, as you start generating more and more digital assets (particularly as you move into rigging and set dressing), keep in mind the project management ideas we talked about in class today. They'll help you out tremendously.
As always, submit your models/rigs to ucbugg@gmail.com. Let your facilitator know about your progress, too, and don't hesitate to ask questions when they come up.
I hope everybody has a great weekend and a good week. Next Thursday, we'll most likely be talking about character animation.
-- Daniel R.
Homework 5 - More Modeling
Hey UCBUGGers,
This week's homework assignment is pretty straightforward: keep working on your models. Some of you got your models critiqued in class; everyone who submitted something should receive some form of critique from his/her facilitator via email. If you don't have a character model to work on this week, start modeling other assets you'll need in your animation. These would include environments, props, and character accessories. There's often a lot of work to do here, and even small changes can make a huge improvement in how well your film is received.
Submit your models to ucbugg@gmail.com. And don't hesitate to email your facilitator if you run into problems.
Have a great weekend, and see you next week!
-- Daniel R.
This week's class
Hey everybody,
We're planning on doing some hands-on work this week. Please bring either your laptop or the computer account form we gave you (or both) to class on Thursday. We'll be going over the basics of character rigging, plus answering any lingering modeling questions you have.
See you Thursday!
-- Daniel R.
Homework 4 - Modeling
Hey everybody,
Ready to try your hand at some character modeling? Now that that you've plotted out your animations in storyboard format, it's time to start creating some digital assets! Your homework assignment for this week is:
Model a character from your animation. Each member in your group should submit a model for this assignment. Some of the project groups this semester have more members than their animation has characters. If this applies to your group, then some of your members will need to be assigned to the same character model. Each person will then turn in their version of the character. Having multiple interpretations of a character can actually be quite helpful, as you can (if you want) choose the best features of each when making your final version.
IMPORTANT! Submission this week (and for the rest of the semester, in general) is going to work differently than in the past. Each project group has been assigned a facilitator as a "project advisor." This facilitator will be contacting you soon, and from here on out, you'll be submitting your project-related homework to this person. You can also ask him/her project-specific questions as they come up (and they will) as the semester wears on.
As usual, send your character models in .ma format to your facilitator before class next week.
Good luck modeling!
-- Daniel R.
Homework 3
This week's homework is your first group assignment. Your team will be creating a storyboard for your animation to present to class when we meet next Thursday.
Things to keep in mind for this assignment:
1) Use the storyboarding process to figure out what is and isn't feasible for your animation, and to get a feel for the length of your piece. The storyboard should be (as much as possible) a detailed account of each and every shot you plan to have in your final animation. It's important to nail down this detail now so that you don't waste time and effort creating 3d assets that end up unused in the final film.
2) As your storyboard panels should depict actual shots, think about direction and camera placement/movement. You can even include arrows/other indicators to illustrate directions of motion of the camera or key objects in the scene.
3) We strongly encourage you to truly work together, as a group, on this assignment. The sooner you learn to collaborate effectively, the smoother the rest of the semester will go and the better your final animation will be for it.
Submission: You may either draw the storyboard panels on physical media or use a digital image editing tool such as Photoshop. Whatever you choose, your results must be presentable to the class. If you physically draw your panels on a small medium (index cards, 8.5x11 paper, or generally anything smaller than posterboard), please scan them so that we may show them with the projector at a viewable size. If you do this assignment digitally or scanned, please email a .zip file with your storyboard panels to ucbugg@gmail.com. The .png image format is preferred. Otherwise, come prepared to present your physical storyboards on Thursday.
See you then!
-- Daniel R.
