Video Game Project

Students came up with video game concept ideas and voted on 2 that they will create.
The students will go through the entire game development process, from design, storyboarding, sketching, modeling, to coding.
One group will be developing their video game for the PC platform using Unreal Development Kit while the other will be developing for mobile devices using Flash.

Resources for Unreal team

Intro to Unreal Development Kit
Tutorial series on how to make a horror game in Maya and Unreal
Character Animation to UDK
Inventory in Kismet
Scaleform menus (Flash => UDK)

Characterization in Maya

FIRST Robotics with the Chicago Knights

FIRST is an organization that designs accessible, innovative programs that motivate young people to pursue education and career opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and math, while building self-confidence, knowledge, and life skills.

"The varsity Sport for the Mind," FRC combines the excitement of sport with the rigors of science and technology. Under strict rules, limited resources, and time limits, teams of 25 students or more are challenged to raise funds, design a team "brand," hone teamwork skills, and build and program robots to perform prescribed tasks against a field of competitors.

The Advanced Arts Motion Graphics class at Gallery 37 is teaming up with FIRST team The Chicago Knights to create a 3d model of the Knights actual robot competing in this year's competition and an animation that meets the collective vision of the class and the Chicago Knights. The model and animation will be submitted to the Autodesk FIRST Challenge. The class will become members of the team and participate in the FIRST Regional Tournament.

Students can register for FIRST with the Chicago Knights through this page. Make sure and type in 1739 for the team number.

Here is this year's competition

Mo Graf 2012

Welcome to Motion Graphics at Gallery 37

In the renovated, state of art, Robert McCormick Foundation computer labs, we are equipped with the pinnacle facility to enable the students of this class to accomplish what no other class in Chicago Public Schools has ever accomplished before.
Follow us along our journey as our fledgling students create composite animations, utilizing illustration, 3D animation, video, and video games.

ALL CITY 2012 Coming Up!!!

ALL SENIORS, download the portfolio submission form here

All artwork form for All City must be filled out by all potential participants and can be downloaded here

3D Modeling Assignment

Understanding the principal concepts of 3D modeling requires an aptitude in spatial geometry, shape manipulation, and mesh construction.
Students will use Maya and/or Mudbox to create modeled representations of actual real world objects.

Maya Hair!
Click it up
Some ideas for subjects to model are:

1. Any real object with simple geometry (if you can think of the shape names that's a good start)
2. Any imaginary object (includes drawings, sketchings, ideas, or ephemeral concepts that can be illustrated and measured)
3. Abstract architecture

Part Deux
Create an immersive environment appropriate for your model. Environments should create a complete and visually continuous appearance for the model. The final product for this assignment will be a fly-through, complete camera path, with the best rendering settings for the lighting in the scene.


HELP!!!
All models must be optimized, have appropriate shaders and be accurate representations of the objects they are modeled after.

3D texture mapping the human head

Click Here for skin painting tutorial in Mudbox

Click Here for Instructions on how to make UV Texture Map in Maya

Here's how to make custom UV maps:
1) right click on object, object mode
2) select object
3) go to either top view or front view
4) (Menu) Create UVs -> Create UVs based on camera
5) Window -> UV Texture Editor
6) In UV Texture Editor Menu, Click Polygons -> UV Snapshot...
7) Size X = 1024
8) Image Format = TIFF
9) File Name = C:/Motion Graphics/Folder with your Maya file in it/UVsnapshot.tif
10) Open file in photoshop
11) Right click on Background layer in Layers window and select Layer from Background, call it whatever you like
12) Fill in ALL the lines
13) Save file as different file name
14) Back in Maya, select your object, Right Click and select Assign New Material...
15) Choose Lambert
16) Rename Lambert something appropriate
17) Click on the checker box icon next to Color
18) Select the File Render Node
19) Click on the file icon next to File Name
20) Locate the file you saved from Photoshop and hit ok.

Click Here for Instructions on how to create a custom camera path in Maya

1) Create -> Cameras -> Camera
2) Window -> Outliner
3) Select Camera
4) (In main view window) Panel->Perspective->Camera1
5) Position Camera where you want it to be
6) Hit 'S' key
7) Move forward in time
8) Repeat steps 5-7 until you're done

Click Here for Rendering Tutorial

Click here for a BATCH RENDERING tutorial

To fix that pesky render view problem in Maya, go to Window->General Editors->Script Editor and copy and paste the code you'll find at this link into the MEL text field and find the menu item Command->Execute

Animation Project

Animated Storytime

A Motion Graphics Project

Each student will create his or her own animation using characters of their own creation, or a composite following a narrative. The emphasis of this project will be to make a story come to life using composite and animation techniques shown in class.
Some ideas for this story can be:
1) A Motion Graphic Novel
2) A non/fiction representation of literature
3) A brief history of something (with an animated timeline?)
4) An animated poem
5) An animation of a concept you are studying in school (ie a historical event, a math concept, a synopsis of a piece of literature, etc)

The video will be a minimum of 30s in length.
Students will use skills from ongoing tutorials and assignments in class using Photoshop, After Effects, and Flash.
All projects must be submitted by the deadline of October 17th, 2011

A full page rundown of the story/narrative concept you wish to animate is due Wednesday the 21st of September by the beginning of class

First phase of making your stories into an actual animation is to create a storyboard.
There are storyboard programs you can use to help you out.

Your storyboards should have a pictorial representation of a frame in the scene
and a description of the scene in a format that follows:

1) Type of shot
2) Duration of shot
3) Special Effects
4) Description of the scene

Tutorial Series on Animating Characters in Flash

Here's a tutorial on how to create a walk cycle, and Part 2, Part 3

An alternative way to animate a character in Flash CS5 is using the Bone Tool
Here's a tutorial to get you started, and another one explaining the IK chain

Speech can be quite tricky. Here's a video tutorial series that breaks it down into simple steps:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Here's the reference image sited in the above tutorials.

Good luck, and godspeed.

On an unrelated note, here's how to morph in After Effects, but to do this tutorial, you'll need RE:Flex Morph, which you can download and install for free here

Here's a Flash fight scene tutorial:
http://www.gotoandplay.it/_articles/2006/06/beatemup.php
Good on ye.

Here are some tutorials for particles in After Effects as per the ones we did in class:
Liquid
Fire
The simple steps for creating fire can be followed thusly:
1) Create a new solid, call it fiya laya
2) Add CC Particle World to fiya laya
3) Apply Fast Blur to fiya laya
4) Apply Turbulent Displacement
5) Add Colorama Effect
6) Add Sharpen Effect
7) Apply a glow effect

Animation Project Final Grade
Students' grades for the 30 second short animation will be weighed equally on their presentations and their final submitted videos.
The presentations will be hosted on each student's blog and he or she will have 5 minutes to

1. explain the general concept of the story
2. how s/he went about accomplishing goals
3. what skills and techniques were learned along the way
4. the method, and process of creating the animation
5. explain the current state of the animation to be presented.

The final submitted video will be graded based on meeting the criteria for the assignment (a >=30 second animation of a complete story with a beginning, middle and end), the quality of the content, and how it displays the student's learned skills.

Commercial Project

The class submitted an unprecedented 4 entries to this year's Chicago All City competition under the category of Film/Video. Several students collaborated in groups to create their submissions, while a couple worked individually to create their pieces.

Check out the entries and see what Gallery 37 Motion Graphics can do!