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Animation:
For a complete evolution of the curriculum for NMAT-D 346, use the following pdf icon:
Falling Objects
Assignment Parameters
Student Work
Assessment
Students were required to animate two different objects falling, specifically a brick and a piece of paper. In order to create the illusion of two objects with different weights, students had to apply their understanding of several principles of animation. In addition, students were tasked with using two different methods of creating an animation in Adobe Animate (Flash). The selected examples are all successful in creating the illusion of these two objects while using the tools in the software to achieve the technical objective.
Flour Sack
Assignment Parameters
Student Work
Assessment
Up until this point in the semester, the exercises that students generated were almost exclusively technical. The emphasis on the technical enabled students to focus on the theory and principles of animation, along with best practices for using the software/tools.
However, for this exercise, students were expected to devise a creative solution to a randomly assigned prompt. With this objective, each student had to consider the performance of their simplified character, a flour sack.
The examples included above highlight a range of creative and technical solutions devised by the students in the course.
Final
Assignment Parameters
Student Work
Assessment
The long-form project throughout the semester, is the development of an original animated short. Students are required to pitch their idea at the beginning of the term and refine their concept through a series of related assignments, such as developing concept art, the creation of a storyboard and animatic, and animation.
However, due to the scope of the course, a fully finished animated short by each student isn't feasible within the confines of a single semester. Therefore, I treat their final submission as a proof of concept, where each student is required to animate and colorize either a single scene or sequence within their short story and integrate this section into their animatic for context.
The examples included above demonstrate a successful proof of concept, with either technically sophisticated animation, and/or a cohesive aesthetic vision.
As a note, for several of the student examples, I have reduced the length of their animation in order to highlight the sequences or scenes that they refined. These truncated clips have been identified in the details.
Instructional Resources
In order to provide more instructive feedback to the students in NMAT-D 346, I used an online platform called "SyncSketch." The benefit of this tool is that it enabled me to provide both written and visual feedback to video-based content in a format that was interactive for the students. Specifically, I could write and draw feedback for each frame in a video, which provided me with greater precision in my instruction.
Included below are two PDFs that show the written feedback that I generated for my students using the "SyncSketch" platform.
SyncSketch 2021
SyncSketch 2020
The videos below were generated to support the lectures and demonstrations from my Animation course. During the pandemic, these videos were essential in conveying critical information when in-person contact was often limited. These videos are still used in my class as supplemental reference material, especially when students are unable to attend class.
Pendulum Demo
