Assessment

Assignments

• completion exercises - pass/fail
• projects - letter grade

Portfolio

• web based "work-in-progress"
• presents all the images/notes produced during the course
• links to other work

Web Portfolio

Purpose

The on-line portfolio of work that you will produce over the next 10 weeks will become a valuable resource that can support your future applications for internships. A good portfolio will show that you have developed advanced technical skills and a professional personal aesthetic. It will provide detailed information about your experimentations, explorations and approach to solving problems related to visual effects.

week 1

Unit 1A

Course Overview & Distribution of Custom Maya Scripts

Topics

• plagiarism
• establishing a common directory structure
• editing, uploading & testing student web pages
• configuring the Cutter text editor

Unit 1B

Pixar's RenderMan for Maya

Review the students popup paper models and their ideas for their digital popup book.
Topics

• presence maps [Maya presence.zip]
• rendering and re-rendering (IPR),
• light types,

week 2

Unit 2A

Pixar's RenderMan for Maya

Review the students popup book models.

Software Topics

• install the java runtime environment (windows)
• install the vsfx319 directory

RfM Topics

• paper translucency [Maya translucency.zip]
• Image Tool ("it") - Save All and Histogram
• occlusion

Cutter Topics

• Update the Rman->Pixar->Documentation->Current preference.

Unit 2B

Pixar's RenderMan for Maya

Review the students popup book models.

Software Topics

• install FFmpeg
• new image_tool scripts

RfM Topics

• create two categories of cameras in Maya
      MOD_x modelling viewpoints, and
      DOP_x cinematic viewpoints.
• the PxrSeExpr node for blue lined paper [Maya blue_lined_paper.zip]

week 3

Unit 3A

Pixar's RenderMan for Maya

Topics

• finalizing the lighting,
• layout and structure of a technical breakdown,
• linking images to a web page,
• linking MP4 movies to a web page.

Unit 3B

Pixar's RenderMan for Maya

Review the current progress of the technical breakdowns of the popup book on the student the web pages.

RfM Topics

• depth of field
• motion blur

week 4

Unit 4A

OSL - Open Shading Language

Final review of the technical breakdowns for the "Popup Book" assignment.
Introduction to the Open Shading Language.

• using Cutter to write osl shaders,
• compiling an OSL shader,
• using an OSL shader as a Pattern with a PxrOSL node in HyperShade

The OSL course of study is divided into two sections. In the first section the visual effects produced by an OSL pattern node are derived from 2D (UV/ST) data. In the second section the effects are based on 3D data such as surface position, orientation, curvature and surface motion.

Unit 4B

Open Shading Language

Topics

• metadata
• using OSL with Maya + RenderMan

week 5

Unit 5A

Open Shading Language

Topics - working the st patterns assignment

• add input parameters to the shaders so that they can be animated
• add images that demonstrate the use of downstream nodes - PxrWorley
• add images that show the effects of the shaders on sophisticated models

Unit 5B

Open Shading Language

Topics - Continue working on the st patterns assignment

• improve the aesthetic quality of the technical breakdown web page

week 6

Unit 6A

Open Shading Language

Final Review the st patterns assignment.
Topics - Color and 3D space

• color variations by height

Unit 6B

Open Shading Language

Topics

• color variations by "facing ratio"
• adding custom primvars

week 7

Unit 7A

Open Shading Language

Review the students models for the SEM assignment.
Topics

• 3D color ramps
• adding and reading attributes for special shading effects

Unit 7B

Open Shading Language

Topics

• primvars and polygon brightness and coloration
• primvars and polygon face color

week 8

Unit 8A

Open Shading Language

Continue developing custom shaders for the non-photorealistic (SEM) assignment.

Unit 8B

Open Shading Language

Continue developing custom shaders for the non-photorealistic (SEM) assignment.

week 9

Unit 9A

Open Shading Language

Begin work on writing the technical breakdown of the non-photorealistic (SEM) assignment.

Unit 9B

Open Shading Language

Final review the technical breakdown of the non-photorealistic (SEM) assignment.