CS491 Intro to Modeling & Postproduction

Instructor:

Joe Michael Kniss
Ferris 301G
277-2967
jmk (at) cs.unm.edu
Office Hours: TTh 10:00-11:00am

Info:

Official class web page:
www.cs.unm.edu/~jmk/IFDM210
Class blog: imagehacking.blogspot.com

Description

Students will learn to tie together three important aspects of digital image production: Modeling and Animation, Postproduction Effects, and Pipeline Development. The content of this course builds on the algorithmic knowledge gained in IFDM 152 to develop procedural animation methods and ad-hoc processing pipelines. Students will be challenged to develop an original aesthetic style while efficiently leveraging computational resources. Essential skills and concepts covered in this class include: GFX scripting languages (Lua and Mel), geometric and algorithmic problem solving, layers and compositing, basic image and color processing.

The objective of this course is not to train students in any particular production software package (though we will use specific tools; Maya, Final Cut, etc..). Rather, students will learn how to think logically about the creative process so that vision can become reality while repetitive tasks are automated.

Text

There is no assigned text book for this class. Students will be expected to take advantage of application documentation and tutorials. Resourcefulness (finding the right information) is a key aspect of animation and production design. Students are encouraged to identify, document, and share community message boards, blogs, production examples etc... Additional resources will be made available via the class web page.

Grading

A significant portion (30%) of the grade for this class is participation. Students must keep an online journal of class activities and assignments. The journal can be a blog, personal web page, or PDF document that must be available to the instructor but not necessarily the world. Assignments will be graded based on degree of completion, quality of results, and documentation of the process. The group assignment will be graded as a whole (50% of project grade) and with respect to the individual's contribution (50% of project grade). The group assignment is the final for this class.

Grading Breakdown

• 30% personal journal (2-3 entries per week for an A)
• 40% individual assignments
• 30% group assignment (15% project grade, 15% individual contribution)
Late assignments will incur a 10% per day grade penalty. Students are allowed one free late day per-semester.

Idea's for journal entries:
• Watch a movie! Dissect the interesting/significant digital manipulations (e.g. color enhancement, special effects, compositing, etc)
• Take a tutorial (e.g. Maya keyframing, shading, modeling, etc) and report what you learned.
• Research a topic from class (e.g. Subdivision surfaces, splines, compositing) and report what you learned.

Course Content

Modeling & Animation (4 weeks)

• Basic Modeling
  Using Maya, object creation, subdivision, lofting etc..
• Rigging & Movement
  • Bones, skinning, constraints, and kinematics
  • Frank articulated Maya model.
• Animation
  Time-lines, keyframes, motion blending, iteration.
• Texture, Shading & Rendering
  Materials, shaders, lighting, iteration.
• Homework 1 due Jan 27
  • Using 3x5 or 4x6 index cards, animate a bouncing ball
  • Assume a 25 fps frame rate and a minimum of 100 frames
  • The position of the ball should be as physically accurate as possible
  • Frames must be hand drawn
  • Embellishments and stylization are encouraged
  • Submit your animation with an estimate of the time it took you to produce it and an explanation of the production process.
  • Extra credit: digitize and produce an animated gif of your animation
• Homework 2 due Feb 3
  • Read and understand Assignment 1
  • Develop a concept for your animation
  • Estimate the length of your proposed animation (at least 4 seconds)
  • Create a story board for your animation
    • Learn about storyboards, e.g. a quick google search
    • Can be hand drawn or digital
    • Each "frame" should have a time associated with it
    • Each "frame" should depict a key event in the animation
  • Optional/Extra Credit:
    • Identify suitable models for your animation
    • Create a simple animatic of your storyboard
• Milestone 1 due Feb 5
  • Refine storyboard
  • Select key portion of story to animate
  • Story should be no longer than one minute in length
  • Be sure the story board indicates timings
  • Be sure your frames are from the camera's point of view
  • Be sure to indicate motion (camera and objects)
  • Be sure to clearly indicate cuts
• Assignment 1 due Feb 17
  • Develop a 3D room, including table, mirror, scenic detail.
  • Incorporate an articulated model
  • Create a short animation sequence involving a bouncing ball.
  • Final deliverable must include:
    1. Individual frames (as images with lossless compression)
    2. Depth map for each frame
    3. Object masks for character, ball, and table.
    4. Separate lighting layers
• Milestone 2 Due Feb 10
  • Prepare an animatic of your animation
  • Animatic does not need to be a high-quality rendering
  • It should give a strong sense of motion and animation
  • Be sure to iterate for good timing/pace of story
• Homework 3 Due Feb 24
  • Read, implement, and report (on your blog) the following topics:
    All of these topics can be found in the Maya Help
    There are a number of additional topics, you should follow links for sub-topics you don't understand. Be sure to report on these too!
  • Global illumination
    • "Render the scene using Global Illumination"
    • "Final Gather"
    • "Ambient Occlusion"
    • "Area light source"
    • "Render with global illumination"
  • Render Layers
    • "Render Layer Overview"
    • "Render Layer Editor"
    • "Render Layer Concepts"
    • "Render Layers to PSD (photoshop) format"
  • Optional: Take the Maya tutorial on Global Illumination

Postproduction Effects (4 weeks)

• Filtering & Color
  Blur, sharpen, edges, color spaces, etc...
• Layers & Compositing
  File formats, depth images, masking, blending.
• Basic special effects
  Noise, grain and dirt, atmosphere, contrast, smoke and fire, etc..
• Computational issues and debugging
  Assessing efficiency of a pipeline, problem solving strategies when things break.
• Assignment 2 Due Mar 20
  • Use frames from Assignment 1 for special effects
  • Composite image layers to produce a final frame (show the components of one frame)
  • Apply an atmospheric effect to the scene
  • Develop a color correction scheme to achieve an aesthetic effect (e.g. Film Noir, Comic Book, etc...)
  • Create a special effect for your scene (e.g. explosion, sketch outlines, etc...)
  • Final deliverable must include:
    1. Each effect in isolation (i.e. one image per-effect)
    2. All effects together in one image
    3. A demonstration that the effect process works on another image from the animation sequence.
    4. A written "recipe" for recreating each effect.
    5. A discussion of the cost associated with your postproduction process, in terms of computation time, memory, and user effort.

Pipelines (4 weeks)

• Scripting & programming review
  Loops, control flow, IO, syntax, standard functionality
• Basic tools
  Image/graphics Magic, Basic ops(+-*/), Adobe Script, Shake, Custom tools.
• Pipeline construction & testing
  Building a processing sequence, performance measurement, memory management.
• Putting it all together.
  Effect breakdown, pipeline simplification, art-asset evaluation.
• Assignment 3
  • Assemble effect process from Assignment 2 into a pipeline.
  • Report performance time for pipeline.
  • Process all frames and deliver a finished sequence.
  • Develop a new effect pipeline, and provide comparisons with original.
  • Provide a written discussion/documentation of pipeline, including the logic behind your breakdown.
  • Peer critique of final product and process.

Collaborative Production: Assignment 4 (4 weeks)

• In teams of 4-5, create a longer, more polished scene.
  • Divide up the tasks of modeling, animation, shading/lighting, composition, and effects.
  • Insure that individuals can work in parallel.
  • Iterate on the piece to achieve a high-quality short.
  • Students are encouraged to use peer critique and dailies
  • Each student must maintain an online journal of activities on this project.
• Deliver a documented portfolio entry including:
  • Story boards and animatics.
  • Before and after sequences for special features of the clip.
  • A character "bible" showing key poses and expressions.
  • A youtube/google video version of the short
  • A high quality DVD/HD version of the clip
  • An artist statement describing the aesthetic contributions of the piece.
  • Provide all of this in a web deliverable format.