We were going to meet tomorrow, Monday morning, to share projects.

But I have been sick all weekend and cannot make it in.

Sorry for the late notice…  The portal was down earlier when I tried to send email.

IMPORTANT: I have to hand in final grades quickly.  Please put your DVD in my box in the department office by 1PM, tomorrow, Monday the 6th.  The is a firm deadline.

IMPORTANT: I assume you have been reading the blog: http://wordsbybuzz.com – for precise instructions on what to hand in.

Thanks!

I had fun working with you.

Buzz

Please look back at the instructions for the project that I provided at the beginning of the semester.  And please look at the requirements I recently posted for handing the project in.  I am seeing some preliminary work that needs changing…

And please remember to use lots of anti-aliasing and to render something bigger than the small, default image size, and to follow the other guidelines.

In particular, if I have not seen your work recently, it is extremely imperative that you keep in mind that the standards for the final project are much higher than in the intro course.  I asked everyone to work with me on your project, but some of you didn’t do that .

You need to create full scenes, with elegant models, renderings from non-default cameras, good lighting and shadows, nicely placed textures, animation that is non-trivial, etc.

Thank, Buzz

We will meet on Monday the 6th at 9AM to share videos.  If you finish before this and cannot come to class on the 6th, make sure to get me a disk by at least noon on Monday the 6th.  I will play your video for the class.

Also – please test your DVDs before handing them in, and please read the details of how to hand in your project, as described in the posting immediately before this posting: http://wordsbybuzz.com/?p=1380.

Your project must be completely finished and you must hand in a disk no later than 9AM on the 6th of May.  And if you are not coming to class, you must have it ready by noon on the 6th.  (I always end up having trouble with one or more disk, and so I need extra time if you will not be there when I play your video.)

Buzz

Please do the following:

1. Put your entire Project folder (not just .mb files) onto a DVD or CD.

2. Make sure that ALL your textures are in that folder, and that your mb files know where to find them; otherwise, when I open your project it will appear that you didn’t put textures on your models.

This is important: When you create a file texture or a bump map, or pull in a file to be used in Maya for any purpose, you must read the file in from somewhere in your Project folder – not from your desktop or your pictures folder, for example.

3. Before you put your Project folder on the disk, please remove all renderings; this will make your Project folder nice and small.

4. Put your movie on the DVD.  Please make sure it is playable by the free Apple Quicktime player or the free VLC video player:

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html

Also, please create either an mov or avi video.

5. Make sure your video is no more than a gigabyte in size.  If you need help compressing it, let me know.

6. Remember that an audio track is required.

7. Put your name on the DVD or CD and put the disk in some sort of a protective case.  I don’t want them to get scratched and cause me to not be able to read them.

8. For the first 10 or 15 seconds of the video, have it clearly display your name, the semester, and the course, such as:

Joe Jones, Advanced Animation, Spring 2013.

9. Very important: Make the render settings meet the following guidelines:

Use at least 1280 by 960 pixels per frame.

Use a high setting for anti-aliasing.

Make sure you have appropriate shadows and take care with transparent materials – it can take a bit of work to get these looking nice.

10. Finally, please look at the two sets of slides I posted earlier in the blog at the beginning of the semester and make sure you have met the requirements for the class project.

Remember: there is no need to create a playable video DVD.  Just create a data DVD.

Thanks!

Buzz

If you have not been coming to class and I have not seen your work in a while, please come to class.  There are only two weeks left in the semester, and so you should be thinking about the rendering process now.  I am concerned that folks will not be able to produce an acceptable project.

Thanks

Buzz

In case you do not know yet, the campus will close at 2 today.

Buzz

If I have not seen your work in a while, please come to class and get me up to speed on your work.  It’s getting very late to be making any significant changes or additions.

Thanks

Buzz

Please remember that I am available during class hours to look at your work and to help you out.  I do need to see your work long before the day the project is due.

See you tomorrow.

Thanks, Buzz

I need to know where everyone is with respect to your projects.  Keep in mind that building a skeleton for your characters and rigging them is a painstaking task, as is applying textures – and these are things you should be doing right now.

So if you have not checked in with me recently, please show me your work in class tomorrow, Wed, the 13th.

Thanks

Buzz

Tomorrow we will look at a free plugin that can be used to instantly build a skeleton and a rig for bipeds and quadropeds.

There will not be a blog entry on this.  We’ll cover it only in class.

Buzz