Last modified: 11:32 Feb 28, 2000
The reading assignments are readings to do for the lecture (e.g. you should have read the reading to be ready for the lecture). The assignments are things to do after the lecture.
Note: the links here are to my notes on the readings page. "online" is a link to the online reference
For the first lecture, we will discuss what this course is going to be and give you some ideas as to what you will be doing. We'll also watch some gratuitous animation.
Handouts: |
Lasseter paper |
Readings: |
None for today, although it would be good if you look over the web site. |
In-Class Viewing: |
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Assignment: |
Form a reading group. |
In this lecture, we'll start by looking at the art of creating motion for animation. We'll start diving into some of the details, although, we'll spend a little bit of discussion leading up to it on the historical context. The goal for this lecture is to get an appreciation for what animators are trying to achieve.
Required Reading: |
Lasseter: "Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation." This is a light, but important, paper. You can read it on your own. |
Other Readings: |
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In-Class Viewing: |
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Assignment: |
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Last time, we looked at animation to see what we are trying to create. Now we'll start to look at the tools to actually make animation. Since there's little to read about the basic concepts, we'll look at a specific system (Maya).
We'll also begin talking about animation mathematically. The main thing will be to review some graphics terminology to get an idea of what it means to have objects that we will animate.
Required Readings: |
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In-Class Viewing: |
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Other Readings: |
Because I haven't assembled the course reader yet, its harder for me to give you papers to read. Chapter 2 of Parent is not going to be required in the course, so if you're interested in it, you should read it now. I have some other quick and easy general references on the readings page. You should look at one of these to get some familiarity with some of the buzzwords. |
Required Readings: |
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In-Class Viewing: |
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Other Readings: |
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Assignment: |
Be aware of the art assignment deadlines coming up. You might want to start playing with Maya to make some motion to get an appreciation of what we're talking about in class. |
Note: since we didn't cover Catmull's paper last time, we'll talk about it a bit in this lecture.
Over the next 2 lectures we'll cover the basics of physical simulation, introduce some of the "cheap" methods for doing physical simulation, and look at how those methods are used.
In the past, I've stressed the connection between optimization and simulation, and done optimization first. This year, as an experiment, I'm going to try doing physics first.
Required Readings: |
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In-Class Viewing: |
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Optional Readings: |
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The basics of simulation are presented using the simplest possible objects (particles) and the simplest possible methods (penalties). Before moving on to more complicated things, we'll look at what we can do with these simple ones.
Required Readings: |
This is too many papers for one lecture, but for these, the gist of the papers are important, not necessarily the details. What I recommend is each person reads a subset of these papers, and that each reading group makes sure that someone has read each one.
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In-Class Viewing: |
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Optional Readings: |
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In the next two lectures, we'll move on to more sophisticated methods for doing simulation. In lectures, I will probably follow the derivation from my thesis, however, this is not the reading that I will require.
Required Readings: |
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In-Class Viewing: |
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Optional Readings: |
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The mathematics for doing constraints deserve more than 1 lecture.
Readings: (note: reading these is not required, but rather, is recommended) |
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In-Class Viewing: |
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Optional Readings: |
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This isn't what I originally planned, but given how far we got last time into constraints, this time I will discuss some deeper issues in what to do about constraints.
Required Reading: |
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In-Class Viewing: |
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Recommended Readings: |
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Required Reading: |
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In-Class Viewing: |
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Optional Readings: |
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In honor of Cindy Grimm's visit (her talk will be on Monday, Feb 28th at 4pm and is required), we will discuss the paper connected with the work. This paper is best discussed along with a contrasting paper that was originally presented in the same session at SIGGRAPH (it was a banner year for facial animation).
Before the lecture, meet with your reading group and consider the difference between the two papers: why would one method be preferable to the other. (they each have their pros and cons)
Required Reading: |
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In-Class Viewing: |
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Optional Readings: |
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OK, we still haven't gotten to talk about the guts of how to implement constraint methods. We'll make one last attempt to go through it.
Required Reading: |
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In-Class Viewing: |
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Recommended Readings: |
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For this lecture, we shift gears a bit and think about the art behind computer graphics. 3D computer animation has as much to learn from traditional filmmaking as traditional 2D animation, since we face all the same issues: how to convey what happens in a world through a sequence of images.
Unfortunately, filmmaking could be a whole life's study unto itself. As a computer scientist, I am not quite sure how to convey the general gist of the issues in filmmaking. But, it'll be fun to try.
The main topic I plan to discuss is cinematography (that is, choosing where to put the camera and how to move it). But related issues like composition, editing, lighting, ...
An alternate reason for introducing these topics is that there are interesting possibilities for building some of the filmmaking knowledge into animation tools. Some first stabs at this are included as optional readings.
Required Readings: |
You are required to read some basic film book (at least the parts on shot composition, cinematography and editing). Some suggestions:
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In-Class Viewing: |
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Optional Readings: |
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Homework: |
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For the 2nd Film lecture, we'll continue where we left off on the first, and discuss lighting.
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