This course is offered as traditional classroom course, as well as a web based hybrid course. The paragraphs in blue pertain specifically to students taking the DL version of this course.  The paragraphs in black pertain to everybody. This course, like all others I teach, is not offered through ELI. Instead is offered as web based hybrid course through our Liberal Arts Division.

1. modeling texturing and animating a fish.
2. modeling and animating a human like character.
3. modeling and animating a bird.

If you are taking the web version of this course, you will be required to work on only one project, which must be chosen from the 3 listed here above.  Working  online is much more difficult, even with the option of coming to some of my regular scheduled classes. If most of your work will be done without my direct help, it will be best if you could concentrate on working on only one project. On the other hand I will accept more work as long as the work is done in the areas defined by the 3 projects, and with the subject matter I have chosen for these projects.

The software that I support is Animation Master (A:M), by Hash Inc. A:M is the brain child of Martin Hash one of the pioneers in the field of 3D software programming.

I have been involved with 3D modeling and animation since 1994, first with trueSpace v. 1, followed by Animation Master v.3. Later on I worked with Lightwave, 3D Studio Max, Raydream Designer (now Carrara), Bryce, Poser, XSI, Maya, Z Brush, Blender, Wings 3D, Wold Builder, Terragen, and QE Radiant a free program dedicated to level design. I wanted to own them all, and learn them all. It took me a considerable amount of time to realize that "owing them all" attitude was just not possible, as well as counter productive.

Recently I narrow my software choices down to one: Animation Master. because of its ease to use and its extraordinary tools, it's in my view the best software you could use to create a digital portfolio in a reasonable amount of time. Off course if you are fixated with Maya it maybe hard to convince you otherwise. Maya was designed to be used by Production Studios to be reprogrammed for multiple users. Usually teams of specialists each using a part of the program, artists such as modelers, animators and technical directors, could work on parts of a project. In that environment, in most instances, they wouldn't see each other work until it came together at the end of the production. Production studio graphic artists are trained to perform specific tasks with Maya or XSI, which are programs not designed with the single user in mind. Animation Master was.

Animation Master will allow you create models, 3D illustrations, and animation faster than any other 3D software because its learning curve is not as steep as those of other programs, and because of the most excellent support it provides.

Working with software other than Animation Master.

Even though, in this course, I only support  Animation Master, there's no doubt that any of these 3 projects could be done with other software. But if that is your plan, I would have to seriously question your intentions, and I would prefer talk to you first to make sure you are on the right track. Learning on your own is commendable, but I can't grade you just on that idea. also I cannot let you do anything you want because that is not the way things work in the real world. Keep in mind that this course is not about just "learning the software".

• Using the assignments, and relate tutorials  list here below, you will be required to produce at least 10 rendered scenes, rendered in the JPG format and 2 short animations per project. You can reuse the objects you have created and introduce them in new scenes. New scenes can be created by changing backgrounds, lights, shadow direction, object arrangement, object texture, and camera angles.
• If you don't understand words like scene, object, and rendering, you obviously have no background in 3D design whatsoever, if that is the case I will have to discourage you from talking this course's hybrid web version. You will not be able to teach yourself 3D design just by "playing" with the software.
• Scenes must be rendered to file as bitmaps, again, if you don't know what a bitmap is you should not be taking this course. In order to evaluate your work, what I need to see from you are images saved in the .JPG format, for still images, and in the .AVI format for animation. 3D programs native formats are not acceptable.
• For the DL version of this course you will need to email your work to me as an attachment, this form of communication must  take place on a regular basis. Even though there are no set due dates, waiting until the end of the semester to show me your work is unacceptable. You must value my feedback, if you will wait until the end of the semester to show me you work it simply means that you don't value my feedback, because once the end of the semester is reached it will be too late for you to do anything to improve on your work.
• Please read more about the specific requirements for DL courses here.
• If you are in the DL version of Art 278 you'll be required to work on only one project, that project should be that of modeling and animating a fish. What is important to understand is that due to variations and uniqueness that each software developer brings to their software's tools, the way a model is animated in trueSpace is not exactly the same as the way, from the tool stand point, as it would be animated in A:M ,3D Studio, or Maya. Therefore you need to approach all this with an open mind, as well as stay focused on one software title. From a general conceptual standpoint all 3D program are based on the same technological principals.
• Because I will not penalized you if you find it impossible or impractical to meet with me, you need to stay in close contact with me and email screen captures of your work in progress, I can't accept a just "finished piece". I need to see screen captures of you fish's wire frame, taken from different angles, in other words you need to send me images tracing the history of you model. Images indicating how you have textured and animated the fish, step by step, all the way to your production's final version.
• Please don't go and look for strange an exotic fish, just for the sake of being different, some fish like the sword fish, tropical fish with large fins, or antennas, are not suitable to be animated with deformers. Start out with a simple fish like a bass, or something similar to it, a fish with a body without without large protrusion.

• 1a)   The Interface of Animation Master, opening and managing files in A:M.
• 1b)   A:M most frequently used Tools.
• 2)     Choreography, staging your models.   
• 3)     Groups
• 4)     High and Low Resolution Models
• 5)     Rendering to File

Project # 1

This project entails:

• modeling a the fish.
• texturing the fish. What may constitute to be one of the difference between a character and a realistic fish is usually the type of texture applied to the model of the fish. A photo applied to the fish will make it appear more real.
• creating several perspective views of underwater scenes  where the fish will "swim" or "rest". These perspective view, as well as side view of the fish, must be saved to file,  or screen captured, pasted into a new canvas in Photoshop and saved for the web in the JPG format. All these images must be presented to me formally during your mid term and final presentation. For best possible results and for maximizing you outcome you should screen capture your work from the very beginning of your production, all the way to the end product, this will show how the fish was made.
• Animating the fish using  deformers or a rig. The outcome of the last leg of this assignments will be a number of short animations saved in the AVI format. You will animate the fish swimming a short distance toward or away from a camera. Deformers will deform the fish's body to simulate fishtailing.

You will need to find photos of fish to be used as references. The same photos will also be used, with some modifications, as texture maps to be applied to the model of the fish.

  "character" fish

  realistic fish

The anatomy and appearance of a fish lends itself to the learning of basic modeling and animation principles.

The fish propels  itself forward by arching its boding and and using that arched position as a spring, the fish tail helps considerably in displacing the amount of water necessary in creating enough resistance to promote forward propulsion.

In general terms what you are going to learn in this project will be applicable to other software. I am referring to a modeling technique  known as box modeling.

>Modeling and animating a fish with Animation Master, this relatively new tutorial is intended for folks in both my traditional and the DL class, if you are in the DL class you must own A:M and be somewhat proficient in using it.

>Modeling the fins with Animation Master, a continuation of the previous tutorial, fins are added to the body of the fish.

>Texturing the fish. Bitmaps, photographical or hand painted images can be applied to the fish to make it look more life like.

>Rigging the fish.  Rigging deals with the process of adding control objects, known as bones, to the fish. Bones are associated or "grouped" with specific points of the object's geometry so to control it, as bones are moved the geometry will follow.

>Fish Action.  Actions are reusable animation created in A:M Action module. These actions can be applied to a model in the Choreography module. In our case we are going to create a fishtailing action to be applied to the fish

>Swimming on a path  By constraining an object to a path the object's motion (in our case the fish) can be controlled as the object will track the path. By combing that motion with a fishtailing action produced by bones, the animation of the fish can acquire a more realistic look.

Project # 2

The human figure in our case a virtual model can be staged and posed in a number of ways for illustration purposes. The images and animations derived from this activity can be used to showcase your talent in this particular field. You should begin modeling the figure without detailed, details can be added later, what matters at the initial stage of modeling are the figure's proportions.

"Biped" means two legged, this term is often use to describe any two legged creature. The rig or skeleton that we are going to use to animate this biped character was obviously designed for two legged creatures. But before we get to that stage we got to model the biped first. Follow this tutorial:

Modeling a biped

For a complete tutorial concerning rigging and how to manipulate bones correctly look for the following two video tutorials from the Hash.com web site under Support > Video Manual >

"Move it", how to manipulate bones correctly

"Show Some Backbone", character rigging

Biped walking  this is my own tutorial.

The rig that we are going to use is a ready made one named Skeleton 2001.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with use ready made skeletons. You can study ready made skeletons and eventually design your own. Skeletons or "rigs" will not show in the final product. The A:M CD comes with a number of ready made pre rigged characters, even though I would not use them for your portfolio, I would not hesitate borrowing their skeletons.

During the modeling and animation process, you may overlook two important aspect of you production: one is the fact that during any given advanced stage of your production, what you see on the screen can be used for illustration purposes. A character can be used to illustrate a magazine article about physical exercise, or body types, or whatever may need an illustration involving the human figure. The other neglected aspect of your production could be that of not keeping a record of the history of your production. If you are taking my course you will need to do that. You presentation and your portfolio will look so much better, and your work will have much more credibility if a history of your production is kept.

There are several video tutorials concerning rigging and animating a character available from the www.hash.com web site under Support > video tutorials.

Please look at them and study them carefully. Replay them several times. Viewing them once is not good enough.

The timing of your character motion is crucial. Animation software are not teachers, you need to time your action as close as possible to the way it is in real life, there's nothing in the software that will teach you that.

Get a stop watch and start timing your action, try to find videos on the Internet that will illustrate the action that you want your character to perform, and let that guide you.

More Animation Master projects and tutorials 

Project # 3

A bird is an excellent subject to model and to animate. Birds a re capable of simple gestures like turning or bobbing their head or very complex one like landing and folding their wings.

There are no ready made skeletons or motion capture for birds and for most animals, therefore you'll have to make your own.

Wings

Feathers, feathers are an option, in this particular tutorial I'm opting for paper-thin feather, by extruding edges. Another option can be that of extruding feathers, from the muscular portion of the wing, by extruding faces.

Painting the bird, the word "painting" is used here in lieu of texturing, or mapping. In other words it refers to the process to applying a texture to the bird's geometry.

Rigging the bird

For a better understanding of the process or rigging, please refer to the fish tutorial, I'm not repeating here what I already have covered in that tutorial.

Animating the bird with Actions

Animating the bird in the Choreography

This animation is not perfect, as you can see it doesn't loop well, the birds slightly jump between the last and the first frame of the sequence. This can be remedy easily, and I'll address this issue in the tutorial: Animating the bird. All my illustration in these pages have intentional small defects, which they are meant to discourage folks from "borrowing" my work. At least I would hope so.

Birds activities such as resting, roosting, and perching can be used to generate ideas for animation, a bird when perching can move its head and wings slightly. You can base a simple but effective animation on that type of motion.

Ideas generated from videos shouldn't be interpreted to the video original length, instead they should be anywhere between 1 and 3 seconds, and designed so they can loop. That can be achieved by copying and pasting the first key frame at frame 0 to the last key frame of your animation. Here is an excellent tutorial from hash.com web (17.3MB)  illustrating how to copy an paste key frames to create a simple walk action that loops.

We'll use the same idea and sequence of steps to make the bird walking.

this is a commercial video, but please don't view it as such, instead see what you can learn from the bird's movements.

Chickens and ostriches are some of the few species of birds who have traded flying for walking. You could make your bird walk using similar guideline as those used for a human. This is the tutorial to study: waking action. This same animated walking action created for a human character, in this waking action tutorial, can be applied to a bird. But some modifications must be made to the bird.

1. The bird must have long legs such as those of an Ostrich or Emus.
2. The bird's legs poses must be those of a bird not a human. Therefore you must find that specific information in a video or a a sequence of stills.

Bird Walking

The two sample animation, here above, are based on the same identical walking action, the difference is that in 3 birds scene the bird's stride length has been shortened. A:M will allow you to adjust a character stride length as long as its face points to the world Z axis. This concept will be explained in detail in the BIRD WALKING tutorial.

Working with trueSpace

Caligari trueSpace 7.6 is now available for free. The product is now own by Microsoft Corporation. This is a great opportunity to own a top of the line 3D modeling and animation program for free.

I've been involved with trueSpace since 1994, beginning with version 1. I have also created a large number of models and animation using trueSpace. There are several free tutorials available from the Caligari web site, regarding its latest version the 7.6. Learning trueSpace on your own within a semester, and, at the same time, produce quality work, it's pure wishful thinking.

trueSpace is a first class program, with a first class rendering engine. The illustration here above is of a character I have created.

Currently I'm no longer providing new tutorials for trueSpace for Art 278 and 279, but the tutorials concerning modeling and animating the fish the bird and modeling a human, are still here in this website, and many more tutorials and illustration about trueSpace are available in other section of my web site, for Art 284, for example.

Unfortunately at this point in time I find it difficult to support a large number of software titles. At the same time I don't want to throw away all the work that I have done supporting trueSpace, therefore I will leave all the tutorials I wrote for this program for anyone that maybe interested in them.

Modeling the eye of the fish

Creating multiple textures for the fish in Adobe Photoshop

Texturing the fish    

Texturing a model: UV unwrapping: general concepts concerning UV coordinate assignment to a model's surface,  unwrapping and projections. (Required reading)

Deformer will not show in the final rendition

Modeling a low resolution character with trueSpace.

The modeling strategies that you are going to learn in this project can be applicable to other software. In particular I am referring to a modeling technique  known as box modeling.

The figure that we are going to model is not going to be highly realistic, but given time, it can become the foundation for a much more realistic model.

If you have not drawn extensively the human figure, you will need to find images dealing with the human figure to use as references.

Modeling and animating a Bird

Animating a bird, in particular, is relatively easy in comparison to animating the human figure.

General concepts concerning Forward and Inverse Kinematics will be covered in this project with and used specifically in animating the bird's wings.

It should help further your understanding of Inverse Kinematics.

 Point animation

The AVI format can be converted to the GIF format in Adobe Image Ready.