Learning With Technology

            As far back as I can recall, technology has been a vital component to my education.  I distinctly remember being in computer class during elementary school.  We would play Oregon Trail on the computers.  Presumably, our instructor felt it would help develop our critical thinking skills and provide us with a subliminal history lesson in the guise of being the fun game.  In reality, my classmates and I would have a ball subjecting our Oregon Trail family to starvation and scurvy. While this might not have proven as educationally beneficial as was hoped, it did solidify in me a love of gaming that would continue on throughout my life and culminate in my pursuit of a degree in animation.

            During my pursuit of a BFA in Animation/illustration from MSU, a significant amount of time was spent in front of a computer learning the ins and outs of some very complex animation and 3D sculpture programs.  The most significant of these was Autodesk Maya.  Autodesk Maya is software that allows the user to create models, skeletons, apply physics systems and create animations.  It is also a useful tool for rendering static three dimensional images.

The Autodesk Maya 2011 interface.

            A typical 3D animation class would have our professor projecting a feed of his monitor onto a projector screen.  Typically, he would play a brief PowerPoint presentation related to the day's lesson.  Our lessons ranged from the basics like frame-by-frame animation and poly-by-poly modeling to more advanced techniques like creating particle collision events.  After debriefing our lesson, the professor would have the class open Autodesk Maya.  He would do the same, and instruct the class step-by-step on how to solve whatever the problem in question was.  The class would follow along with his actions as they were being projected.  Once we finished our lesson, he would give us a similar but more rudimentary problem to solve by ourselves.  My peers and I were encouraged to help each other and troubleshoot before requesting assistance from the professor.  This fostered a sense of community within the classroom that enhanced our quality of education and reinforced whatever information was being posed to us in the lesson.

            It is difficult to overstate the importance of technology in a class where the main goal was to become familiar with industry-current software like Autodesk Maya.  A peripheral objective of my animation classes was to instill the fundamentals of animation and particular functions that are consistent with any animation or 3d rendering program into our minds.  This way, no matter what program was put before us, we would be capable of executing at least the most basic tasks.

            Autodesk Maya is the industry standard when it comes to 3d animation.  It is highly innovative and features cutting edge rendering technologies.  The only limitations were the computers themselves.  For the bulk of my education at MSU, the computers were relatively outdated and not nearly as powerful as needed to utilize all of Autodesk Maya's features in a timely manner.  For instance, to render a scene with certain light schemes or textures, it could take upwards of an entire day.  A scene is one frame, a single image, not a movie or animated short.  One can imagine how frustrating this limitation was.  Thankfully, towards the tail end of my pursuit of a BFA, MSU upgraded the machines.  Maya ran like butter, and we were free to create as complex a scene as we desired. 

            Our professor, Wobbe Koning, shared a few lessons from class on his youtube page.  These videos are essentially what we would follow in class, except that, naturally, he was teaching us live and not from a youtube video.  Below you will find a short video on creating a path animation.

Sources:

http://area.autodesk.com/img/products/maya/nondestructive_live_retargeting.png
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxMmSF29VzY