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Instructor: Mike Gleicher, Office hours Tuesday 11-11:45 (or by appointment)
There is no teaching assistant for the class.
Textbook: None
There will be plenty of readings (expect to read a lot). Most of them will be papers or book chapters provided via the web.
Class Meetings: M/W/F 11:00-12:15, Room 1257 Comp Sci
Note: the class is "overscheduled." While we have scheduled the class for 225 minutes each week, we will only meet for 150 minutes per week on average. Some weeks we’ll meet all 3 times, some weeks we’ll meet fewer. I will make every effort to have the schedule planned in advance so you can plan around it.
Attendance and Participation: required
You are required to come to class and participate. We will keep score. There will be various things, like written assignments, to help us make sure you’re keeping up. However, a lot of the material will simply be presented in class. If you’re not there, you’re not learning it. Being “there” means more than just showing up – it means being part of the class.
A key piece of this class is learning together. You need to do your part, since everyone will be helping everyone else. There’s too much stuff for any one person to read/learn. So we’ll all help each other get through it.
If you are going to miss class (because you are sick, or have a job interview, or …), please send email to the Professor before class (if possible).
Communication: via this web site
You are responsible for everything that gets posted to this site. In general, all announcements will be made by posting (not by email). You can get an RSS feed from the link at the top of the page.
There will be a separate course Moodle for discussion, assignment handins, etc. In general, all announcements will be made to the course website, although reminders might be posted to the Moodle news.
Final Exam: There will be no final exam.
Collaboration Policy: We want people to work together to learn, and to learn to work together. Individual assignments should be done individually, but may be discussed with classmates.
Team assignments and projects are meant to be done as a team. Except under extenuating circumstances, all team members receive equal credit. If you have a problem with your team, discuss it with the professor as soon as possible.
In general, we will follow the same policies as for the games class (see the collaboration policy page). One difference is that we will give you more opportunity to pick your partners. Note the rules on attribution: they are very important (and apply to artistic assets as well as code: be sure to give credit to what you borrow).
Computing Environment: Students can use any computers that they want. You will have access the the CSL instructional machines (rooms 1358 and 1366 have pretty nice machines with good graphics cards and monitors. For some assignments, you may need access to an animation system (like Maya or 3D Studio Max or Blender). These are available on the CSL computers. They are also available free to students.
Course Elements: There will be various activities for the class
- In class participation: I’ll repeat it. Lots of this class is learning from lectures and discussion. You need to be there and participate. We’ll try to have some of the discussion online, but past experience suggests this is a poor substitute.
- Reading Assignments: When you are assigned something to read, you are expected to read it. Sometimes this will only be assessed by your participation in class. Other times, you will be expected to do a short writing assignment to show that you’ve read. Reading assignments are generally due before the class where they are discussed, and their written components will be due enough before class so that I can check them before class. Written things will be turned in via Moodle.
- Assignments: There will be various other assignments not directly related to readings for lectures. These will often require you to do some short writing, or make a picture, or find something on the web. Generally these will be turned in via Moodle.
- Online Discussion: For some of the reading and assignments, you will be required to participate in the online discussion. This will mean both making a post (in Moodle terms this is “starting a discussion”), as well as to comment on other people’s posts. In some cases, you will be required to evaluate others work.The exact mechanics of this will be ironed out as we figure out Moodle. There will also be forums for general online discussion.
- Mini-Projects: I am not exactly sure what to call these, but there will be two smaller projects. (2-3 weeks). One will involve doing a survey (and possibly presentation) about some animation topic. The other will involve trying to implement some basic animation thing.
- Project: There will be a 6-week project at the end of the class. You can either choose to have an art-focused project (make a film, albeit one that requires you to do some technical implementation) or a research-focused project (although, there is an expectation that you will use it to make an animation).
Late Policy: Because I know you’ll ask…
Certain assignments have specific due dates because other class activities depend on them. You must complete readings before the lectures where they are discussed. You must post about readings before I read them in order to plan the lectures. You need to post assignments so that other people can look at them (since commenting on others’ work is part of many assignments).
Sometimes due dates are important because I want you to be done with one thing and move on to the next.
Late assignments will generally be accepted, but noted and penalized. If you do one reading assignment late it will be treated differently than if you consistently turn things in late.
Overall Goal: You might think this is as simple as "learn about computer animation". But its more than that. You might look at what I wrote in 2011 (although the project structure will be different this year).
First, this is a class about the technical methods in animation. Its not about how to become an animator – its about how we create tools for producing animation. That said, in order to appreciate the tools, we need to have some appreciation for the art (so we’ll learn some about that as well).
Second, this class has a focus on research. We’ll be looking a lot at the research in computer animation. We’ll still need to learn about the practice (since that’s where research hopefully ends up, and also some practice is required to do research). Learning about research things is useful (even if you become a practitioner) since learning how to assess how people solve problems (and understand and choose from solutions) is useful. These skills transcend Computer Animation. In a sense, we’ll be using animation as a way to practice our skills.
Some of the focus on research is to help you develop research skills: how to read a paper, how to present ideas, …
