SYLLABUS
ARCH 5420: COMPUTERANIMATIONANDSTORYTELLING
Fall 2018

DRAFT 1.0

INSTRUCTOR:
Earl Mark ejmark@virginia.edu
322 Campbell Hall (Office Hours: Wednesdays, 9:00 to 10:45 am or by appointment)

TEACHING ASSISTANTS:
Matthew Jordan mrj3dd@virginia.edu (Office Hours: Mondays, 7 - 8 pm, Cambpell 107),
Julie Zhou jz2qc@virginia.edu (Office Hours: Wednesdays, 4 - 5 pm, Cambpell 107),

Description: Arch 5420 is a workshop/seminar that explores moviemaking through exercises in computer animation. Approximately five independently developed short animations constitute the work of the term culminating in a one to five minute time-length final movie project. It is anticipated that an interdisciplinary group of students will bring perspectives from across the arts and sciences, design and engineering. Movie projects may range in creative subject areas. For example, built and landscape architectural places may be experienced according to our own changing eye point of view, the transformation of light and objects, as well as the movement of other people. In addition, objects found in architecture and nature reveal formal, tectonic and spatial orders that can be understood through animated sequences that depict varying intervals of time. Storytelling, whether by means of simple character animation or more complex scene description, may be related to these contextual aspects of either real or imagined environments. An in-depth exploration of NURBS three-dimensional modeling and rendering will be the basis for representing built and natural environments, sculpting characters and creating complex geometrical forms. Subject areas for individual projects may range widely according to the disciplinary perspective of the individual student, including visual narratives with character animation movies, or the analysis of mico-scale physical environments or larger scale architectural and landscape architectural settings.

Enrollment: Registration is by instructor permission. Enrollment is open to all graduate students and to all undergraduate students (typically second year undergraduate students and avove) with some weight given to statements of interest on SIS and seniority. There are otherwise no prerequisites. The instructor has a background in moviemaking that includes film/video production and computer graphics animation.  

Technology: The primary software is Maya, a professionally used product in computer animation and movie production. Other  related products may be introduced this term as time allows for animation, including special software focused on sound editing and production, movie editing and advanced light energy modeling and rendering. Maya provides an advanced set of animation techniques, such as instantiated motion, inverse kinematics, compositing, fluid dynamics effects, hair and clothing simulation and other special effects. Also used in the term will be software for digital video editing, compositing, morphing, creating human figures, sound capture and editing. Maya will be available on Apple and Windows computers throughout the school. Free academic use copies of Maya with full functionality are available for students who have access to a personal computer on the Apple and Windows platforms. The required class text is free and online to members of the UVA community (see below). We will also introduce inertial motion capture equipment for full-body motion capture. The V-Ray 3.6 plugin to Maya, an advanced global-illumination and light simulation program, will be integral to advanced rendering tutorials in the class. More information about personal copies under a pilot program established with Chaos Group will be announced in class. In addition, we will introduce Unity and the HTC Vive VR system on an experimental and voluntary basis. Most classes will meet in Campbell 105. We will meet at other locations on a few occasions only for tutorials on additional equipment as will be announced in class.

Grading: Each of the first four projects counts towards 10% of the grade. The final project counts towards 50% of the grade. Class attendance and participation counts towards 10% of the grade. Due to the sequential building block nature of the topics covered, full attendance is expected but for standard excusable absences (e.g., illness).

SCHEDULE

The schedule below is subject to modification.