Computer Animation Arts

Wednesday, 7th October is your Invisible Cities  Online Greenlight Review (OGR) Your OGR is to be presented as a single Scribd presentation on your blog, beginning with your name, date, and project title. If you are still yet to get to grips with Scribd go here for some easy-to-follow instructions.  Save your documents as PDFs before uploading to Scribd , as this should mitigate against formating glitches. When pasting Scribd embed code into your blog, you must first select the HTML mode tab, then switch back to 'Compose' to view the embedded presentation. Your OGR presentations should be uploaded to your blogs on Wednesday 7th October. Written feedback will follow as comments on your OGR post and will take between 1 and 3 days. Invisible Cities  2015 OGR: What do you need to present? 1) Your 100 thumbnails exploring all cities  (minimum). 2) Your chosen city, its key descriptions and associated thumbnails. (Please include t...

The audio recording of Friday's Invisible Cities b riefing presentation is available now @ myUCA / Space and Environment / Invisible Cities. 

Post-enrolment week, we now have a more clear idea of our overall number of active students, which means I can now issue a revision of your A & B and 1, 2, 3, 4 groups, as per your class rotations on your timetables.  Please see the group lists below - and please ensure your classmates have seen this notification.  Many thanks. Group A (Photoshop/Maya/Life Drawing) Aureo, Sam A, Kristina, Mark, Deanna, Joe, Almu, Katie, Manisha, Danni, Ian, Danielle, Sarah, Pip, Sam J, Brad, Hannah, Mike, Sky Group B (Photoshop/Maya/Life Drawing) Dinesh, Tyler, Abdulhagh, Tom M, Kyle, Lilly, Lewis, Beckie R, Jack, Robin, Douy, Tom S, Eleanor, Rebecca S, Zoe, Marion, Tom W, Ben, Luke   Group 1 (Animation Fridays) Aureo, Sam A, Kristina, Mark, Deanna, Joe, Almu, Katie, Manisha, Danni Group 2 (Animation Fridays) Ian, Danielle, Sarah, Pip, Sam J, Brad, Hannah, Mike, Sky Group 3 (Animation Fridays) Dinesh, Tyler, Abdulhagh, Tom M, Kyle, Lilly...

And so it begins, ladies and gentlemen - your first undergraduate project brief, and your first foray into the fast-paced, high-energy culture of Computer Animation Arts! I'm not alone in looking forward to seeing how you respond to the challenge of your Invisible Cities project, but before you get stuck in, just take a few moments to take a look at these examples of previous student work. By clicking on their names, you'll be able to view all blog posts associated with their respective Invisible Cities projects.  Don't get preoccupied with the polish of the final paintings, give your attention instead to their methodology - that is, how they arrived at the final three paintings. Review their research and reflect on its presentation.  What impresses about their work?  What might you do differently?  Take time to think about the ways in which the students have organised, presented and published their bodies of work.  Happy browsing! Julien Van Wallenda...

Skilled editing is as effective in the creation of a good film as a writer, director, or performer. Though often overlooked, editing brings shots together to make a whole greater than the sum of its parts. These ten movies are a fantastic illustration of just how important editing can be. Something for all years but in particular year 2.

As you explore Calvino's  Invisible Cities for your first project, it's time to start gathering visual reference and inspiration to enrich and fine-tune your imaginings. At the briefing, I'll talk about Influence Maps - digitally produced 'mood boards' that we use as a means of collating and curating image research.   A single project idea might generate multiple influence maps - and should do - as early impressions give way to more definitive directions. You'll find the Influence Map template on myUCA in your Invisible Cities folder.  Below is an example of an influence map at work.  Here, the size of the image in the grid relates to the hierarchy of importance; in simple terms, the bigger the image, the bigger the influence.   A properly useful influence map isn't decorative or image-rich for the sake of it, but rather an exercise in distillation, reflection and clarification.  They are also a very economic way of ensuring that...

This is a really succinct and really useful video-essay on colour design in film.  All of you should take a few minutes to watch it, as the principles outlined here will prove integral to all of your up-and-coming projects.