Computer Science 39a
Introduction to Computer Animation

CS39a has been the most enjoyable class I've taken at Berkeley.
-- Westley Sarokin, 1998-04-10

Schedule | Final Projects | Pictures | Roster | email cs39a

Overview

Welcome to the Home Page for the CS39a, the centralized place for information pertaining to the seminar Introduction to Computer Animation taught the Fall of 1997. We are affiliated with the Computer Science Division at the University of California, Berkeley. Without the great support from the people at EECS Instruction, much of the technology that drives this seminar wouldn't be possible.

This seminar will be a hands-on and gentle, top-level introduction to the field of computer animation. We will discuss geometric modeling, explicit motion specification, forward and inverse kinematics, spline interpolation, morphing and dynamics, and implement a subset of these topics. Guest speakers will be provided to present their research. Students will be provided with tools to create their own animations easily, with little to no programming. No prior knowledge of programming or mathematics is assumed. The seminar is limited to 16 freshmen and sophomores.

Throughout the seminar, we will be using one of the top-end 3D animation products for the Macintosh, Infini-D by Specular, Inc.. There will be a final project beginning near November 1st which will team up 4 or 5 students to produce one large animation. The animations from last year were a great success!

Class Lecture Schedule
Lecture: Wed. 1-2pm in 306 Soda & Fri. 1-2pm in 405 Soda
Lab: 111 Cory, 24/7 a kool-aid smile.
Course Control# = 24564
Required book: "Principles of Three-Dimensional Computer Animation" by Michael O'Rourke, W. W. Norton, NY, 1995
Recommended book: "Making Them Move: Mechanics, Control, and Animation of Articulated Figures" by Norman I. Badler, Brian A. Barsky, and David Zeltzer, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc. San Francisco, California, 1991.
Recommended reading: "Computer Animation: Algorithms and Techniques" by Rick Parent (parent@cis.ohio-state.edu)

Teaching staff

Instructor : Brian A. Barsky (barsky@cs.berkeley.edu): 785 Soda, x2-9838 (Office hours Tu/Th 5:00pm - 6:00pm)
Teaching Assistant : Dan Garcia (ddgarcia@cs.berkeley.edu): 535 Soda, x2-9716 (Office hours We 3:00 - 3:30pm, Fr 2:00pm - 2:30pm)

Assignment-related information

The current motd (Message Of The Day)

WWW Unix Tutorials #1 #2 #3 #4 #5

Homework #2 online turnin form

Homework #3 (Set up a homepage and run SPAM)

Homework #4 (Morph yourselves into each other)

Homework #5 (Create an articulated figure)

Homework #6 (Animate your articulated figure)

General Information about cs39a Students

Online class roster

Pictures of yourselves

Other available information

UCB EECS Instruction

Ongoing UNIX help sessions

A Beginner's Guide to HTML (Useful for writing a homepage)

Questions and Answers regarding the Award-winning film Hunger

Plugs

ACM Siggraph (here's our local chapter): SIGGRAPH is the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics. They sponsor the premiere Graphics conference in the world. Very worth attending if you have any interests at all in Computer Graphics, either from the user or programmer side.
Watch Reboot on Saturday mornings 9:30am (yawn) on ABC (ch. 7): This show contains a full half-hour of pure computer-generated 3-D animation. Wow. Does anyone know of another television show which contains that much animation?
See Toy Story in theatres or on video.: Set in a world where toys have a life of their own when people are not present, "Toy Story" is a sophisticated and delightfully irreverent comedy-adventure that represents the first full-length feature ever to be created entirely through the use of computer animation. (from the Toy Story site)