CG 625Character Animation

This course covers three major technical areas: Advanced Modeling – Character modeling techniques with Maya, Advanced Character Deformers and Rigging with Maya and Advanced Animation Direction with Maya. All of the above three are core components of Maya. The course acquaints students with the advanced features of Maya modeling and animation. Through step- by-step professor-led tutorials, students are directed to master essential advanced Maya modeling and animation skills through hands-on experiments. The class combines lectures with tutorials to demonstrate the mechanism of advanced Maya character modeling (Nurbs, polygon, subdiv) and advanced Deformers, Rigging, and animation including Character Setup Features, Skeletons, Constraints, Character Sets, Animating Character Sets, and more. Students are directed to put the concept to work immediately in class activities, and then apply them to their projects. Term grades are based more on the animation level achieved in the project than on testing for knowledge of concepts.