[Bf-education] Re: Animation paper/Attachment wont work
Hans Ramduth
hanslr7 at hotmail.com
Tue Mar 21 19:19:16 CET 2006
Dear Carsten,
thanks for letting me know that attachments dont work with this mailinglist.
I just thought I had written something so useless that it wasnt worth any
comment. Anyway I am pasting the whole text to the email, although it may
make a somewhat long text to read.
Hans
The MAuRiTIAN METHOD OF TEACHING/LEARNING BLENDER FOR ANIMATION
by Hans Ramduth (a short bio of myself and about my school below)
Introduction
The course is based on my personal experience (and frustrations) in teaching
myself Blender. Please don’t get me wrong: I am very grateful to people who
write wonderful tutorials and share their knowledge and their time on the
web. But many of these are pedagogically unsound - “now that you have taught
me how to model/texture/animate a wonderful apple, how the hell do I make a
banana?” is a reaction one can expect from students, a reaction that we all
have had at some point in our attempt to learn Blender. Many web-tutorials
have left me (and others, if I go by my students' reactions) confused on how
to extrapolate from the initial insight these afforded me into the apparent
complexity of Blender. Things which are so obvious to intermediate or
advanced users, but we can all recall the frustration we had in the
beginning when we seemed lost and felt bewildered by the uncharted
territory...
My focus is on attempting to devise a roadmap to learning Blender against
which the learner (in a Blender course or even self-taught) can understand
where s/he is and in what direction to progress to reach a proficiency in
the manipulation of Blender to achieve specific goals. That is why I am
posting this to the community and hope that this will be part of the
solution for a comprehensive Blender course.
What follows is part modified handout, part course outline for my students.
Some necessary background to learning Blender
The objective is not to learn how to play with a wonderful toy and impress
yourself and others with your skill but to make animation with it. Why this
(not so) subtle distinction? It is all too easy to go for the extremely
intricate functionalities (and special effects) and forget the main purpose:
to make animation (and games). No, more than that: good animation and good
games. I therefore assume that my students are not just playing around with
a toy, but as potential/actual 3D artists that have something to say, to
express using one of the most powerful and complete 3D software available
for the animation industry today. I ask them to think of it as a tool, or a
complicated musical instrument with which they will compose/ create
compelling, award-winning animation, for personal satisfaction and for
business. And as for all instruments, we learn by manipulating these.
(It is important to note that it is our responsibility as teachers/trainers
that we do not set tasks that frustrate and ultimately discourage the
student. Instead it has to be a gratifying learning curve through a series
of steps in mastering the instrument.)
Working with the end in mind
I begin by assuming that my students know nothing about animation. And
proceed to make them do their first traditional animation using pencil and
paper drawings which are scanned into a computer, or a few lumps of
plasticine clay which are photographed with an available digital camera
(even a cellphone camera will do at this stage) and imported into the
Blender video sequencer. Add a sound track, voila, its that easy if you want
to stick to traditional material! Merge the track and video in Virtual Dub,
you have done your first short movie! (And with just the Blender video
sequencer + virtual dub + audacity, it is already possible to make quite
sophisticated work).
At this point animation has become achievable, realizable. Now are we ready
to aim a little higher? Our next project will be a 3D animation made totally
in Blender.
Our bottomline is: To produce animation. From simple ones to more complex
ones, but animation all the way.
The ideal complete course will consist of 4 levels, and the first 3 will
consist of the same triple core : modelling / texturing + lighting /
animating. In fact you could call each level as modelling/texturing (+
lighting) /animating 1, 2 and 3.
Level I : Beginners
We will begin with an overview of the non-standard buttons and windows and
quickly begin modelling. The objective is to model basic shapes and elements
of an animation project. So the first project is a tabletop, a basket of
fruits, a simplified computer on a computer table, a room and some pieces of
furniture (to be chosen with the guidance of the trainer/lecturer to avoid
too complex 3D shapes). Can this be animated? Yes: a simple camera movement
( a simple pan, zoom or the camera on a path) is the most gratifying
experience at this level. (I am personally against the traditional bouncing
ball exercise at this point. Even 'complicated' textures such as transparent
bottles are to be avoided.)
So clearly what can the student reasonably aspire to do at this level? Model
simple shapes such as fruits, everyday simple geometric shapes (not even
shoes the first days - too complicated).
Proceed to simple colours, simple textures, experiment with the various
textures but the students are forewarned to avoid going too far. The
temptation here is to jump on this tutorial and that tutorial, but many of
these have other pre-requites and the student can get lost and confused, as
we all have. (Not that I am against a healthy dose of confusion, it surely
enables one to discover new things, but this can be overwhelming in Blender
at the early stages!)
Ideally the project can be a 20 seconds ad for television and sound can be
used just to make the project more complete. It will probably consist of a
few shots of 5-6 seconds that can be edited and composed together in the
sequencer.
Criteria of evaluation: Has the student covered the initial material, has
s/he overcome the initial steep learning curve of getting used to the
interface? Can s/he model any simple geometric shape: a simple table, chair,
plate, glass, dog kennel…? Can s/he colour, texture & put some lights? Make
a few nice still images out of his/her models? Finally can s/he use simple
camera movements (including a camera on a path tracking an object, the only
slightly more difficult exercise at this level)?
At this point the student has two animations under his/her belt (the
traditional animation made in the sequencer and this new one).
Level II: Intermediate
Let us learn how to animate a simplified cartoon character: a Mr. Potato
(any irregular shape - a fruit or veggie will do), add pixarish eyes. We
will texture our character and then use vertex key animation. We will also
learn to use the IPO window and the action window. These two need to become
our friends if we want to proceed further: the IPO is the dragon that must
be tamed to harness the power of the beast. And it gets tamed very slowly
because it is quite un-intuitive.
Again our project will consist of a short tv ad, where shapes will talk (if
the student wants to go into lip synch at this stage, it is possible, but it
can be postponed until a better mastery of the other features is achieved).
Some shots can use text animation in 3D. Indeed some of the text can be
turned into characters and animated using shape key animation.
Texturing and lighting: more complex texturing such as reflections,
transparencies, more complex shading and basic UV mapping introduced and
used, if possible in the main project, or in alternative mini-projects. Some
basic particle effects, hair, basic radiosity concepts to be introduced too.
Animating: Bouncing ball and other action/reaction, anticipation,
exaggeration type of animation to be used.
Criteria of evaluation: standard of animation produced at this level begins
to aim at a semi- professional level. It must demonstrate more than a
beginner's trial and error level of output.
Level III: Intermediate-Advanced
Pre-requisites: apart from completing the two previous levels, student must
initially propose a storyboard on which his/her work will be based. A
convincing world complete with particle animation, compelling characters
(visually and psychologically in terms of motivation, aims, goals,
weaknesses, are to be well conceptualised before the modelling/animating
actually takes place. The stronger the visualisation, the easier it will be
to cut the animation in terms of shots and camera angles, etc). Basse’s
kickflip (www.kulma.org) is the ideal short animation to show, and students
are expected to aim at that level of proficiency.
The level will focus on modelling, rigging, animating a full figure (ideally
still somewhat cartoonish so as to avoid the unnecessary stress of making it
conform too closely to reality). Using IK and using the IPO/Action and Non
Linear Animation (NLA) Windows.
Texturing: Using particle effects; uv mapping.
Animating: animating a minimum of 2 rigged bodies, optionally using softbody
effects.
Compositing animation and live footage.
Putting it all in a 1 minute' (minimum) to 3 minutes' (maximum) long
animation (this depends on the time frame of the course): student may want
to create a music video.
Criteria of evaluation: Does the student demonstrate proficiency in
modelling, rigging and animating a character in a convincing world? Does
s/he display a mastery over the more complicated features of Blender
(particle effects, fluid simulation, complex camera movements, compositing
with live footage, etc?)
Can s/he make a semi-professional animation at this level? Given the right
amount of practice at this level of skill can the student eventually develop
his/her own short films, join the profession as a junior animator?
Level IV: Advanced-Pro
At this level the student is expected to have obtained a proficiency in
modelling, texturing, lighting, effects, animating and compositing.
What will be focussed on are: Game design and scripting; professional
animation work (with the target of reaching the standard of the Orange
gurus, or the plumiferos power-users) and with a focus on the standard of
work required by the animation industry. An awareness of cutting edge
techniques (such as displacement mapping, creating high poly-count meshes
into displacement map textures for low-poly meshes, etc. Obviously, only
the actual blender experts will be able to define the content of this level,
and only a few can actually pretend to lecture at this level: I cannot, so
it is impossible for me to chart a territory that I have barely stepped
into.
You will notice that I have left out many features:
dupliverting and dupliframing; Spin and SpinDup; meta-objects; curves and
nurbs; etc,etc.
Obviously, it is not because these are not important, but they fall in place
once there is a roadmap to achieving certain goals.
In a more detailed course map I shall try to include features which are
essential (such as tracing from background images, dupliverting to create
plants and vegetation, etc, etc). But right now it is the main ‘armature’ of
the course that I am attempting to structure.
I don’t think that what I propose here is complete in itself. All available
material (web tutorials, video tutorials, books, etc) work in complement to
this roadmap. Greybeard’s and other video tutorials are especially useful
for students. But this project-based approach is necessary. Working through
4 projects (or more if possible) at the first 3 levels, students can develop
sufficient skills in manipulating Blender. What is different in my approach
is that I don’t want to focus on specific tools and items in Blender.
Without putting them in some kind of perspective in an animation routine,
they are distorted out of proportion. The only proper perspective is when
these tools/features/items are actually used in an animation project and the
students are made to think laterally on how to extrapolate from their actual
levels of skill to achieve the widest range of models/textures/lights/
animations. In other words, the course is designed to make them realize the
underlying relationship in modelling(...texturing,rigging,animating...)
apples and bananas and aeroplanes and whatnot…
At this stage I hope that what I written makes pedagogical sense to both
the teacher and the student. It can be considered as an armature on which
other essential elements can be added. In my case I know that I cannot teach
more than Levels I & II within the time constraints of the module Animation
I at my university. But I hope that my students will be sufficiently
‘hooked’ to Blender to meet me again for Animation II, where they will do
character animation, and if we can convince the administration we can try to
get a Blender expert to teach Level IV.
But I am also aware that others have trodden the same path and may have
valuable comments to make on the above. I shall be very grateful for
whatever comments/ advice you would want to share with me to improve the
above.
Short Bio:
Who I am & where I teach: Hans Ramduth, lecturer at the Mahatma Gandhi
Institute, Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, where I teach art history and art
theory. I have been teaching art to all age groups (kids, secondary school
students, university students, art teachers at the Institute of Education,
after completing a degree in Fine Arts with a specialisation in Art History
from Shantiniketan, India in 1995. In the last five years I have also taught
advertising and storyboarding at a private business school, and began to be
interested in animation and puppetry. My wife and I run a small audio-visual
production company, Kuler Films, that has already produced a 13 x 6 puppetry
series for television, our biggest project to-date. We now plan to use
Blender for our projects. I discovered Blender 'by chance' online when
browsing for 'art' related softwares for linux, got bitten by the Blender
bug and have struggled to teach it to myself. I consider myself to be an
intermediate user, not as clueless as I used to be. I have already used
Blender for two simple billboards and very short (10 seconds)- yet to be
aired - tv ads, but I still need to make longer and more complex films to
really pretend that I can use the software.
The Mahatma Gandhi Institute offers various courses in the Arts (Indian
classical dance, Indian classical music, oriental languages, etc, but is
also the only institution on the island offering tertiary education in the
visual arts.) The department of Fine Arts of the MGI is offering Animation
as an elective for the first time. The softwares taught are: Flash (for 2D)
and Blender, because it would have taken us years to convince the
administration to buy expensive 3D proprietary software (and since I am a
Blender fan, it was easy for me to tilt the balance in favour of *free*
open-source software; I personally never plan to use maya or max even if
these were given to me for free, … well,ok, maybe if they become open source
someday…)
For this first batch I have 12 students with little to no animation
background, some with very average computer skills. And the above roadmap
was designed in reaction to their feedback and in anticipation of their
predicted reactions to the obstacles ahead as they proceed with the
Animation I module.
>From: Carstentigges at aol.com
>Reply-To: Blender Education and Training projects
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>To: bf-education at blender.org
>Subject: [Bf-education] Re: Animation paper/Attachment wont work
>Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2006 06:18:38 EST
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>Hi Hans Ramduth!
>I think that it is not possible to send attachments with this mailinglist.
>If
>you want to hear an opinion send mail to carstentigges at aol.com with your
>attachment.
>
> Have a nice day!
> Carsten
>Tigges
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