Last modified: 15:28 Jan 26, 2000
For these assignments, the minimum requirements are very light. Part of this is that it is hard to require you to create works of art. Hopefully, you will use these assignments as an opportunity to try out some of the things we learn in the class, and to learn about some tools that will be useful in your projects.
Also, you will be putting your creations on the web so everyone can see. Hopefully this will inspire you a little.
Presently (1/25/00) there is a problem with the Maya licenses, so there are only 4 available. There should be many more available soon.
For this assignment, you are required to make yourself a "course home page" and put it into the correct location inside the 838 directory. This page has to have your name and your picture on it (to help us learn who you are). You must also list the other members of your reading group. In the future, as you complete assignments you will place links to them on this page.
To be compatible with everything, your page must be "index.html". Please name you face picture "face.???" (.jpg, .gif, .png, or whatever format it is). Your course web directory is ~cs838-1/public/html/Students/login (or p:/course/cs838-gleicher/public/Students/login in NT land).
For this assignment, you are to use some set of 3D tools to make a picture. This means that you must compose a 3D scene, place lights, textures and the camera, and render the scene. You should use this as an opportunity to learn a little about Maya. If you have access to some other 3D animation system, such as 3D Studio MAX, Lightwave, or SoftImage, you can use that instead. You should check with me if you plan to use something other than Maya.
At a minimum, your scene must have an in-scene light (that casts visible shadows), at least 3 different types of geometry, and at least 3 different surface types (including using a texture map). Hopefully, you will chose to do more than the minimum. You won't be graded on artistic merit, but trying will give you a chance to experiment with the tools. You may also turn in more than picture.
Please place the pictures in your web directory and name them a1-{1,2,3,4}.jpg. Place the best of your pictures on your course web page.
Each person should make at least one their own pictures, however, I recommend collaborating on learning Maya.
For this assignment, you are to use some set of 3D tools to make a short and simple animation. The purpose of this assignment is to make sure that you have a full set of tools at your disposal, and to give you some idea as to what animators are up against. As in assignment 1, you may either use Maya, or some other tool to create the animation (if you plan to use something other than Maya, please check with me).
At a minimum, your animation should be 10 seconds long, have at least 3 objects that are moving, and have a camera motion that is "intentional" (e.g. that there's some idea of why its there). If you simply recreate the examples from the Maya tutorial, and add another moving object, and move the camera, that would be acceptable. Again, I expect you to do more than the minimum, and use this as an opportunity to experience some of the things we discuss in class, particularly keyframing.
You must turn in a movie file, either in video for windows (.avi) or quicktime format (.mov) or as an MPEG (.mpg).
You should do this assignment with a partner. You only need to put the movie file in one of your web directories, but both people should link to it on their course web page. Be sure to indicate on your web page who your parter is.
It is possible to create an avi file using Maya to create a preview. The downside of this is that it does not use the renderer in its best quality. Also, the avi file is not compressed (so it will be huge). Please use some other program to compress the avi file (e.g. fmp or aviedit or premiere).
If you render the animation in Maya, you will get a sequence of images. You will need to use something like Adobe Premiere, fmp, or aviedit.