Animation

Credits: 3 

This course is an introduction to drawing the human form that explores observational and imaginative drawing techniques using graphite and charcoal. Students work from the draped and undraped model. Emphasis is on accurate representation of the figure utilizing observation with the elements of gesture, measurement, construction line, volume, proportion, and surface anatomy. Materials include graphite and charcoal.

Credits: 3 

This course is an exploration in story structure and the incorporation of classic storytelling techniques/archetypes in the medium of film.

Credits: 3 

This introductory course covers the principles of classical, full animation technique on paper, dimensional constructive drawing techniques as well as the analysis of action and movement in the natural world. Students explore these concepts through exercises which isolate the core principles being taught. Students will learn the fundamentals common to all animation techniques.

Credits: 3 

This course introduces the students to the complex interface of Maya, one of the leading software programs in animation and graphic design industries. Students will learn how to navigate Maya’s interface exploring basic modeling, rigging, lighting, texture, and camera set-up.

Credits: 3 

This class focuses on representing the construction of a 3D object in a 2D image. The class will cover the basics of observational drawing, traditional drawing technique, perspective, and foundational design for concepting and building objects in game art. The class introduces one, two, and three point perspective to accurately construct the appearance of 3D forms. Other topics covered are camera lenses and field of view, the importance of camera placement, and placing shadows based on light sources through perspective guides. Throughout this course, students will learn the role of drawing and design in the game industry. Students will build a sketchbook composed of lessons, observational drawings and original illustrations over the course of the semester. The emphasis will be on building their visual library so they can effectively express their own ideas.

Credits: 3 

This course expands on the fundamentals, applying the basic concepts to further develop skills in locomotion and acting for animation. Students will progress their understanding of motion, weight, and balance, develop pantomime character performance skills, and have their first introduction to animating dialogue. Students will gain a deeper grasp of traditional animation principles and character animation techniques.

Credits: 3 

This course offers an intense investigation of character design. The objective of this course is to design model sheets of unique and imaginative animated characters. Students begin with preliminary sketches and construction drawing, and continue to develop numerous rotation drawings (turnarounds) of facial expressions and a variety of action poses that are refined and which eventually lead to more finished drawings. A variety of styles are explored. Emphasis is on working from imagination and strengthening drawing skills.

Credits: 3 

This is a figure drawing course for animators that focuses on gesture and how to capture the essentials of movement, dynamic expression, and the individual model’s attitude. A variety of drawing media will be introduced.

Credits: 3 

This course covers how to effectively portray the essence of a story by means of quick and accurate sketches. Students learn to develop and create a sequential series of staged drawings (the visual script of each scene in a film). A brief overview of script writing is included. The script’s plot, situations, and conflict are developed from rough sketches to finished presentations. This course also examines staging, cinematography, drama, action notes, dialogue, pacing, timing, and sequencing the story’s action.

Credits: 3 

This course emphasizes 3-dimensional form analysis: proportion, scale, foreshortening, and weight. Using an economy of line and value, students will strive to capture emotion and expression of animal forms by depicting gesture, manner, attitude, and rhythm. Comparative studies of animal and human anatomy will empower students with strong, imaginative drawing skills. A variety of domestic and zoo animals will be studied and drawn in the studio and on location.

Credits: 3 

This introductory CG animation course focuses on the tools of industry-leading Autodesk Maya specifically for creating high-performance animation. Students build upon their foundational knowledge of animation tools and processes, progressing from introductory mechanics with simple rigs, and advancing to pantomime acting utilizing a full-character rig. Students will learn to apply animation principles to CG techniques, with instruction emphasizing a traditional approach to 3D character animation for achieving strong personalities and acting.

Credits: 3 

This course is designed to teach students advanced CG animation techniques by applying traditional character animation principles to CG animation. Students will enhance their approach and workflow while deepening their understanding of Maya animation tools. The course focuses on advancing CG skills in performance and locomotion, progressing to dialogue and character interaction. By the end, students will have produced a polished demo reel showcasing their advanced CG animation capabilities.

Credits: 3 

This intermediate course builds on foundational animation principles, with an emphasis on developing more complex animation skills. Students will refine their acting skills of conveying emotion with their characters and exploring different character types and personalities in various ways. This course will focus on enhancing the students’ animation techniques with nuanced and detailed character animation performance.

Credits: 3 

In this course students will learn the role of layout in the filmmaking process, with an emphasis on feature films. The course will cover the basics of film cinematography, planning camera mechanics, how to plan and use creative perspective, lighting, and visual storytelling. Students will have the opportunity to plan and create a layout workbook, and to develop a series of key layouts during the semester. The emphasis will be on creative solutions for staging and designing the worlds that animated characters inhabit. The principles taught can be applied to traditional animation, 3D animation, or games. Recommended texts: The Five Cs of Cinematography by Joseph V. Mascelli and Film Directing Shot by Shot by Steven D. Katz. Bring a 9 x 12 sketchbook and a set of cool grey Prism color markers to the first day of class.

Credits: 3 

Background Painting teaches students to take their drawn environments and background layouts to full color. The course emphasizes the skills and tools needed to emulate traditional painting techniques using Adobe Photoshop.

Credits: 3 

This advanced course is designed to push the student’s ability to give vision to a concept and to visually convey emotional story beats. Emphasis is placed on visual communication with the use of value, design, color, and composition. Artistic growth is encouraged through a series of critiques and demonstrations.

Credits: 3 

This is a figure drawing course for animators that focuses on gesture and capturing essentials of movement, dynamic expression, and the individual model’s attitude. A variety of drawing media are introduced.

Credits: 3 

This course introduces students to digital approaches to feature-quality animation techniques, focusing primarily on industry-standard software: Toon Boom Harmony, TV Paint, and post-production through Adobe Suite (After Effects and Premiere). The course brings together traditional animation learning and the digital tools utilized in modern animation practices. By integrating these key tools, students will be better prepared for success in their animation studies and creative careers.

Credits: 3 

The purpose of this course is to finalize a short film idea that will be executed in the senior year. This course will provide experience in the process of choosing a short-film idea and developing it into a story that is clear, compelling, and entertaining. Students learn storytelling and filmmaking techniques and explore several ideas before choosing a final film. Students in this class will be evaluated on their scripts, designs and animatics with sound.

Credits: 3 

The most advanced of the animation courses, this class builds on complex concepts of full animation technique. Students will also learn collaboration skills, culminating in a group film created from concept to final color film. Additionally, the course introduces digital, paperless approaches to the full animation technique, utilizing industry-standard TV Paint software.

Credits: 6 

Thesis 1 begins animation production of the students’ animation films developed in Directing for Animators, concentrating on creating and completing 50% of their film animation. The course focuses on communication, character personality, acting, storytelling, and entertainment. Students will be required to participate in weekly dailies, presenting their work and incorporating instructor feedback. Emphasis is placed on developing industry-standard production skills, high-quality animation, meeting deadlines, and managing production schedules. Active engagement and effective problem-solving are crucial for advancing through this intensive course.

Credits: 6 

Thesis 2 continues the animation production process begun in Thesis 1, with students completing the remaining 50% of their film animation. The course emphasizes finalizing animation sequences and refining the overall flow of the film, while adhering to production management. Students are required to meet their final goals, demonstrating an advanced level of craft and technique.

Credits: 3 

This course is taken in the last senior semester and teaches the techniques necessary to bring a film to final color and sound. Principles include digital ink & paint, backgrounds, compositing, and high-quality presentation polishing. All students will complete soundtracks for their films with Foley, sound design, and final mixing. Finished films will be encoded to theatrical DCP (Digital Cinema Package) standards and each class member will prepare the necessary publicity materials for submission to online festival platforms.

Credits: 3 

This course concentrates on preparing students to enter team-based creative environments with emphasis on digital portfolio and reel development, communication skills, industry networking opportunities and success strategies for collaborative projects.

Credits: 3 

This is an introductory-level course designed for students to develop or enhance their 3D modeling skills.   Instruction will focus on the artistry needed to create compelling, “feature-length-quality” characters, while showing how to design and implement geometry best suited for rigging and animation.   Students may focus on character or background geometry for their projects.  Students will be introduced to new software tools and techniques based upon professional practices utilized by top studios in the industry.

Credits: 3 

This course investigates facial structure, proportions of the face and describing likeness, describing the figure using light and shadow, foundations of painting in gouache, color theory and color harmony, anatomical studies, foreshortening, composition, and the figure in the environment. Students learn to make visual and artistic decisions in the context of historical and contemporary figure drawing and painting styles.

Credits: 3 

This course offers an intense investigation and deep dive into character design principles. Students will design unique and imaginative characters suited to the game and entertainment industry as a whole. Students begin with preliminary sketches and construction drawings, which are then refined to create finished character concepts consisting of turnarounds, facial expressions, callouts, and more. A variety of styles are explored. Emphasis is on working from one’s imagination, expanding their visual library, and strengthening their drawing and presentation skills.

Credits: 3 

This introductory course provides students from all majors with the essential skills and workflows of digital sculpting. Using ZBrush students will explore both organic and hard surface sculpting techniques. The course empowers artists to integrate digital sculpting into their creative workflows, whether for 2D concept art, high-resolution 3D models, or rapid prototyping. Key areas of focus include fast iteration, file management, rendering, and preparing models for 3D printing.

Credits: 3 

The Art of Costume is a cross-disciplinary studio course that explores character silhouette, costume, and the draped figure. The content of the class considers both the aesthetic and cultural ramifications of costume, and studies the dressed human form and its context through historic and contemporary periods. The course studies as its topic not only the most basic of subject matter in art history, but also reaches into the fields of theater, film, fashion, costume design, and skins for games.

Credits: 3 

This course offers an introduction to the conceptual process of environment design for video games. Environment concept artists for the game industry skillfully combine real world logic and design techniques to create unique and compelling environments, interiors, exteriors, props, and vehicles for a variety of stories and historical eras. This requires a dynamic understanding of industrial design and illustration skills to cohesively understand how things are built, and to visually communicate proper design elements through drawing, and show narrative aspects of the design. Students will create original design solutions through silhouettes, thumbnail sketches, and renderings to support a comprehensive visual narrative. Students will obtain a solid understanding of how to create original environments utilizing traditional methods, available technology, and 3D visualization techniques to create layouts.

Credits: 3 

This course is designed to empower graphic designers with the knowledge and skills needed to create compelling visual content for a wide range of digital platforms. Through a combination of theory, practical exercises, and real-world case studies, students will gain an understanding of how to engage, inform, and inspire audiences across various online platforms including social media, websites, mobile apps, and emerging technologies. Topics include social media literacy, best practices for digital file distribution, domain name registration, web hosting, and a survey of dominant platforms and technologies that allow for instant, global communication. Software used: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, text-editors, and supplemental open source and third party tools for design and content management.

Credits: 3 

This is an introductory-level course designed for students to develop or enhance their 3D modeling skills.   Instruction will focus on the artistry needed to create compelling, “feature-length-quality” characters, while showing how to design and implement geometry best suited for rigging and animation.   Students may focus on character or background geometry for their projects.  Students will be introduced to new software tools and techniques based upon professional practices utilized by top studios in the industry.

Credits: 3 

This course investigates the history, practice, and visual language of collage. Utilizing varied sources to gather images and found objects, students will investigate and research interpersonal connections to images and objects they feel connected too. This course is structured around three main projects that seek to expand the creative, technical, and conceptual possibilities, all while aspiring to push the boundaries within the media of collage.

Credits: 3 

Experimental Animation’s “Fabrication” class offers students a comprehensive learning experience that encompasses essential skills in Real-World mold making, casting, character and prop sculpting, and miniature set construction. These skills are frequently encountered in fields such as Stop Motion, Visual Effects Animation, and Environment Design. Throughout the course, students will develop proficiency in both traditional and digital mediums. The curriculum combines traditional craftsmanship with hands-on experience in woodworking and foam cutting tools, as well as painting and airbrushing techniques to realistically simulate a variety of real-world textures and materials. Additionally, students will be required to explore modern technology through an introduction to 3D-CAD, 3D-Sculpting, and 3D-Printing. The culmination of students’ learning journey involves designing and creating a captivating set and a compelling character for their final project. This project serves as a platform for students to showcase their creative and technical abilities, demonstrating the skills they have acquired throughout the course.

Credits: 3 

In this course students will learn the fundamentals of landscape painting in addition to concepts and skills that are commonly used when creating environment designs for outdoor locations and client work. Students will learn to study light and simplify complex organic forms into manageable designs using limited value systems and color theory. Students will study on site from life, and they will learn to use reference so they can practice landscape painting in a studio setting. These resources include understanding how to work from photography and online resources such as mapcrunch and pinterest. The primary software used is Photoshop, but other digital painting software can be explored.

Credits: 3 

This intermediate level course builds on the FD 155 Fundamentals of Story as students learn to brainstorm, storyboard and pitch original ideas suitable for television or new media production. This course focuses on the specialized needs of story design for limited animation formats including storyboard formatting, planning for digital puppetry and digital asset archiving. It introduces students to concepts in episodic storytelling.

Credits: 3 

This course covers concepts in character design suitable for digital limited-animation and stop-motion production environments. Students will create character designs for the unique workflows in both mediums. In the digital limited-animation pipeline will design for strategic use of libraries, nesting and 2D rigging. In the stop-motion pipeline students will create designs that plan for the limitations of traditional stop-motion rigging and rigging removal.

Credits: 3 

This course utilizes tablet-monitor technology to create a full-animation 2D pipeline that bypasses traditional paper in favor of digital drawing. Traditional full-animation 2D methods are adapted for the digital 2D animation environment, including hybrid digital enhancements of 2D full animation techniques. Digital keyframes, visual effects and lighting applied early in the pipeline redefine the scope of the animator’s role in production. This course is a track-elective and can be taken in place of AN380.

Credits: 3 

This intermediate level course builds off Fundamentals of Maya and CG Modeling, focusing on CG-based 3D character animation. Based in character performance and storytelling, students utilize keyframe animation while exploring the basics of 3D motion, body mechanics, motion-graph editing, and cycles via projects for tv, multimedia and game animation. Students produce individual and collaborative projects while investigating methods to create compelling character staging utilizing the 12 principles of animation, thumbnails, and personal video reference.

Credits: 3 

This advanced course draws on the practical knowledge developed in EX282 and EX284 focusing on art direction as applied to episodic, limited animation production pipelines. Stylization, set/prop design, character asset strategies and color/lighting design will be explored. Both TV and streaming media needs will be highlighted as students create show-design portfolio projects.

Credits: 3 

This advanced course builds on previous knowledge and skills as students conceive, plan, design and produce their own series of web-shorts suitable for weekly uploads on streaming media platforms such as YouTube. Students will also be introduced to uses of 2D and 2D animation assets in mobile games, 360-degree filmmaking, virtual reality and augmented reality platforms.

Credits: 3 

This advanced class will require students to conceive, develop, present and pitch a concept for an original episodic animated series. Students will produce a comprehensive portfolio of show sample assets including character models, set mock-ups, synopsis of episodes and backstory for all major and supporting characters. EX 350 is a required prerequisite for this course.

Credits: 3 

This course focuses on stop motion techniques outside the normal realm of character rigs and clay armature-based techniques. Experimental approaches including motion design, and other stop-motion based visual effects will be explored. Students will produce stop motion animation elements for chroma-key compositing into analog and 3D digital environments.

Credits: 3 

This course requires that students have proficiency in prior 2D or 3D tools. Students will use their animation skills to create work they will import into their compositing workspace. Students will work to enhance their animation production using a wide array of video filters, effects and strategies. Digital keying, chroma-keying, 3D space, virtual lighting and camera moves will be explored. Students will bring together animated elements from a variety of digital and analog sources using compositing strategies.

Credits: 3 

This course will prepare students in the Experimental animation track for their final sequence of Experimental Thesis Film 1 & Experimental Thesis Film 2 where they will make their senior thesis project. Using linear and non-linear narrative approaches, students will design and storyboard their original concept for the film component of their thesis project. Students will also create a final story-reel of the film component of their thesis project, with final sound. Projects will proceed through a clear sequence of pre-production stages and be designed specifically for limited animation, stop-motion animation and experimental approaches to filmmaking.