Project 1: An Animated Production!

Draft 2/1/01 - Beware - this will evolve!

The goal of this project is for you to work as a team to create an animated production to experience the entire process of creating an animated work - from concept and pre-production, straight on through presentation.

While this is most likely to mean creating a film (video), the possibility of using some alternative medium (such as a computer game level, a Flash interactive animation, ...)

This project will be done in groups of 4. Last year, we gave a forced group organization. This year, we will be more flexible, but we do recommend that you divide the project into smaller pieces worked on by individuals or pairs - last year's strategy of each group having 2 pairs each developing a character worked well. For some tips on working in a group, check this.

Requirements:

The main requirement is that you make an animation that is a "complete" artistic work. It should have a plot, characters, ... If you're doing a film, you should shoot for 1-2 minutes of video resolution work. The piece must have sound (preferably both foley (sound effects) and music).

So far, this sounds like just an art project. So the other requirement is that the piece have technical merit. In fact, this will be the majority of the evaluation. While the exact details of what you "have" to do are flexible, the general idea is that you need to develop some software that works alongside/inside commercial systems and to address technical issues that arrise in animation. Also, I will try to steer you towards solving certain types of technical problems that you will learn a lot from.

So the requirements (these are negotiable in detail, the important thing is the spirit):

1. You must use at least 3 different commercial tools in the course of your production. For example, you might use an animation system (Maya), a video editing system (Premiere), and an audio generation tool (Sound Forge). Or two animation systems. Or ...
2. There must be some scripting involved. (e.g. a Max or Maya script)
3. There must be some code that interfaces a C/C++ program to some existing system. (for example a plug-in, or writing something that reads and writes files)
4. There must be some procedurally (or simulation) generated motion, as well as some keyframed motion.
5. Your film must be "complete" (e.g. have titles, a soundtrack, ...)

Your film must include at least 2 of these, which you develop yourselves:

1. A character whose motion comes from motion capture data.
2. A large group of characters whose group behavior is generated procedurally (e.g. a flock or crowd).
3. A mixture of real and synthetic objects (for example, placing synthetic characters in a real world environment, or placing a real person in your synthetic scene. We will give you access to video equipment to do this.

By "develop yourself" we mean that you write the code that creates it. For example, using Maya's particle system does not satisfy #2, but writing your own flocking controller would. Or writing a motion capture reader that converts things to Maya objects (rather than using a reader built into Maya). For #3, you should figure out how to do the camera/lighting matching yourself.

Resources

Due Dates:

The project is due on March 9th (the Friday before Spring Break). There will be weekly "checkpoints" that must be reached every week (sub-deadlines).

The final "product" does not actually have to be delivered until March 21st. However, the "work" should be done by the 9th (so if there's more rendering to do, ...). There will be a public presentation of the projects at grad student visitation day (march 23rd).

The weekly checkpoints:

• Februrary 9 - Checkpoint 0 - You must pick a group. Send email to the instructor and TA telling us what you've picked.
• February 16 - Checkpoint 1 - You must pick the project. Send email to the instructor and TA (1 per group) describing your project. You should talk about what the film is (story, characters, ...) and how you plan on doing it (what tools you will use, what software you will build). You must describe a division of labor (how you intend to get 4 people to work together). While it is not required, it is highly recommended that your group meets with the instructor before this checkpoint to work out a plan.
• February 23 - Checkpoint 2 - Pre-Production Check. You must have a story board, as well as some description of your "design." You must also demonstrate "signs of life" from your technical aspects. For example, if your plan calls for writing a plug-in, you should demonstrate that you can build a trivial plug-in.
• March 2 - Checkpoint 3 - Status and Resources Check. You must send email to the instructor and TA describing any resources that you need to complete your production (for example, disk space to store frames, access to video editing equipment or audio tools, ...). Also, in class we will have each group give a status report on their project.

Deliverables

In addition to the final media (e.g. video), each group must turn in their design materials (including a storyboard), any software produced, as well as create a web page describing their production. Each individual will be required to write a report on what they did.

For the February 23rd and March 9th deadlines, your group is to prepare a web page with the required information. All project members should link to this page (but it only needs to be in one person's directory).

For the February 23rd deadline, you must include your story board on your web page. Since your storyboard will most likely be hand-drawn (on paper) you will probably want to scan it to put it on your web page. On this web page, you should list the technical challenges that you will face in creating your production, and give some evidence to convince us that you have things reasonably well enough under control to get things done.

For the March 2nd deadline, one email is required per group. Also, each group will be required to present their project in class to let everyone else know what they are up to.

For the March 9th deadline, your web page should have a version of your "result" - either a low res version of the animation, or all the files needed to run your interactive demo. All code written, should also be made available. The web page should document what you did: what technical pieces that you've done, what process you used, where your models came from, how the labor was divided up, ...

The March 21st deadline is to have a final video to Rob for inclusion on the class video tape. This video must be of sufficient quality to look good when recorded on video tape. Each group will be allocated between 2-3 minutes of video on the final tape (we would like to fit all 4 projects onto a 10 minute tape). We will try to arrange for everyone to get a copy of the tape (no promises yet, ...)