Masterclasses

The goal is to train the best professionals and teachers from the Central Europe, who are already proficient in classial 2D art of animation, to move effectively into the realm of 3D.

The series of masterclasses are designed for 2D and stopmotion animation professionals, teachers and students to get effectively trained in transferring their classical know-how into modern 3D technology and techniques. The masterclasses are focused primarily on intermediate and advanced artists to secure solid and quick transition for the entire Central European region to become independent in the long run. Trained professionals and teachers will, therefore, use their newly gained experteese at their productions and school programs in order to further train other artists and students to further secure regional growth and industry independence in using current modern 3D tools.

The course is also aimed at young talented independent artists that want to get trained in this specialized form of 3D animation and become the foundation of the new wave of 3D character animators in the region whose talent and skills should support the quality and expertise in local animation projects.

All the classes are exercise based.

Students could choose and enroll into individual classes separately. However, those that choose to attend the entire module will have a priority over others when being selected.

Any further questions will be answered by mail.

The first 2 weeks of the course are dedicated to Intro to Maya for Animators, the 3D animation tools that students will use as well as very first animation principles.  Attention to animation tools  will be covered on exercise basis – bouncing ball, music balls, obstacle course, acting with a ball – so everybody  could get to the starting line soon enough as well as get into animating a simple production  shot.

This opening class is the prerequisite for every student interested to take the summer animation course.

Maya GUI

Maya Animation tools

Basic Animation Principles

Michelle will take students into all the basic and advanced ways how to animate a 3D character in Maya in terms of the known priciples of animations that apply to 2D as well as 3D.

Animation principles in 3D – squash and stretch, overlap, timing etc.
Physicality and locomotion
Standard walks and runs
Attitude walks
Weight, shift, push, pull

This class is the core of the entire animation series. These two weeks are focused on the non-dialogue acting/pantomime. Students will work on a 15 second shot and will be led by Andy to develop quick video references of themselves, then a storyboard from which will be guided through the standard animation workflow from layout, key poses, breaking downs, final polishing. Lectures from live-action movies and other materials will used to demonstrate the concepts.

Staging and pose design
Acting for animation
Scene planning
Blocking
High level polishing techniques

The course culminates in the final two weeks when we take everything learned so far and add the aspect of acting to dialogue. Rich Quade will take students into the world of spoken word and emotions in animation, having students to animate to an audio track. During the morning lectures students will be shown many examples and priciples of emotional scenes not only from animations, but also examples from live action movies, since modern CG animation is more closely related to film acting then ever.

Students should bring in their own headphones for the dialogue class.

At the end of the course students will have opportunity to show their animation works at a public screening held by the city of Litomysl.

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We will find what the curriculum needs to be for each student by an initial review of their work BEFORE the course  . Keith will offer his analysis of what is needed from the student to improve and achieve their goals. If this analysis is agreed upon by the student, then he will develop the curriculum complete with a series of assignments and targets to help the student improve in this area. The focus will be on student retention and comprehension, so the assignments will reflect this exercise mentality. Once the curriculum is developed it is shared with the student where they are allowed to ask questions. If it is determined that any additional modifications are needed to the curriculum they will be done at that time. Each student can expect to gain significant and noticeable improvement in a given area of their animation as a result of participating in the course.

Students must be skilled in using Autodesk Maya!!

Only students with previous 3D character animation can take the course. Students will send in their example shot or reel, as well as a short letter of intent to Keith describing in student’s words what s/he feels is their need to improve, that will be used to determine the level of experience of the student and also what that particular animation needs to improve. This one week course is basically a quick camp for working animators to challenge and push their skills further.

Note that the content of the course will get further developed.

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This class is dedicated to high-end rigging of a CG character for a feature film.

Students must be skilled in using Autodesk Maya!!

Character rigging I: body setup

Introduction: what makes a good body rig
Building the rig in ten steps
Scene organization: offset nodes, naming conventions

Creating the skeleton and animation controls
IK/FK spine setup
Arms and legs setup. Single-chain IK/FK
Foot setup. Simplifying the reverse-foot

Creating the skinning and deformation rig
Roll-bones setup for arms and legs
Skin weighting. The importance of a good weight painting
Techniques for speeding-up the process

Creating the IK/FK switch with auto-snap menu
Creating the Space Switching with auto-snap menu

Non-roll setup. What is it and what is it for
Forearm-wrist setup without flipping
Arms and legs bending rig
Squash & stretch setup

Character rigging II: face setup

Introduction: what makes a good face rig
Most used techniques in the industry
Designing an advanced facial rig: blend shapes + on-face deformers
Layering the rig

Jaw setup
Mouth setup. Sticky lips
Eyes and eyelids setup

Designing our blend shapes library
Tools for the creation of the blend shapes
Blend shape averaging

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