Computer Science 39a : Schedule

cs39a@cory.eecs.berkeley.edu

Jump to the upcoming lecture

1. (Tu 8/29) Usual teaching staff (Prof. Brian Barsky and Dan Garcia): Introduction, student queries. Our hope for the class. How to get motion into the computer.
1. General Information
2. HW #1 due 9/5 : Post-it animation and UNIX intro
"The Tetra-Pak Story" by PIXAR
"Berkeley Zoom 3fps" by Dan Garcia
2. (Th 8/31) Usual teaching staff: Realism vs. exaggeration, ergometrics, dance notation, human biodynamics, sports medicine, image processing, computer vision, scientific visualization, medical imaging, Berkeley's OPTICAL corneal visualization research.
3. (Tu 9/5) Sam Uselton (NASA) and Wes Bethel (LBL): Visualization problem with time varying fluid flow data, 3D Shape Distortion.
3. HW #2 due 9/12 : Become familiar with UNIX and Emacs
4. World Unix Command Summary
5. Shape Distortion in Computer-Assisted Keyframe Animation by E. Wesley Bethel and Samuel P. Uselton
4. (Th 9/7) Usual teaching staff: Raster Concepts and Frame Buffer Architecture
6. Raster Concepts and Frame Buffer Architecture
7. Emacs Tutorial by Drew Roselli
5. (Tu 9/12) Usual teaching staff: Traditional animation creation, from concept to storyboard (skipping animatic) to pencil sketches to inking to coloring to filming to sound editing. Difficulties present in traditional animation NOT present in computer animation and vice-versa. Techniques of motion, exaggeration, multiple limbs to convey motion. HW #3 online due 9/19 : Create a home page and experiment with SPAM, a forward-kinematics application
"Celmates - three Winnepeg animators (Brad Caslor, Cordell Barker and Richard Condie)."
"The Cat Came Back", 1988 Oscar nominee by Cordell Barker
"The Big Snit", 1985 Oscar nominee by Richard Condie
6. (Th 9/14) Mike Kass (PIXAR): A review of the physically-based animation research done by Mike and Gavin Miller while at Apple in the early '90s. (e.g. Motion of snakes, parachute and water simulations, etc.)
"His Majesty's Secret Serpent" and "Splashdance" by APPLE
7. (Tu 9/19) Usual teaching staff: Continuation of discussion about what are successful techniques used in animation, using PIXAR's 4-animation series as examples. Techniques discussed included, but were not limited to: exaggeration, double-takes, texture and bump mapping, camera angles, synchronization of sound effects, glowing letters, simulated rain, and artificial snow in water.
"Luxo Jr", "Red's Dream", "Tin Toy" and "Knick Knack" by PIXAR
8. (Th 9/21) Usual teaching staff: Overview of how to use Macromedia's Director
8. HW #4 due 9/28 : Create your first graphical animation with Director
"How to use Macromedia's Director" by Dan Garcia
9. (Tu 9/26) Laurence Arcadias (Convival): Laurence showed off her traditional animation work, then explained how she, as a computer neophyte, learned how to use Apple's 2 1/2-D animation system and created a couple animations (one of which was shown at Siggraph '93). Then we saw some of her sprite-based animation for Berkeley Systems screen savers, the Bad Dog and Offensive Chameleons (pre and post-edit). We finished off with her Macromedia Director Lingo-based "Valentine" application.
"Alex" directed by Laurence Arcadias
"Toilette Zome" directed (and partially animated) by Laurence Arcadias
"Tennis Racket" by Laurence Arcadias, when she was at Apple
"The Donor Party" by Laurence Arcadias, when she was at Apple; "Bad Dog" by Laurence Arcadias; "Offensive Chameleons" by Laurence Arcadias; "Valentine" by Laurence Arcadias
10. (Th 9/28) Usual teaching staff: Demo of the advanced Macromedia Director features
9. HW #5 due 10/5 : Create your second graphical animation using Director
Reebok "Cowardly Baskets" (Luxo Jr. tribute) by Rhythm & Hues
11. (Tu 10/3) Bill Reeves (PIXAR): Bill talked about the history of Pixar and showed results of his work for the company in the form of videos and slides.
"Luxo Jr", "Red's Dream", "Tin Toy" and "Knick Knack" by PIXAR
"Toy Story (college reel)" by PIXAR
"Toy Story (trailer #1)" by PIXAR
12. (Th 10/5) Eric Enderton (ILM): "For the motion picture Jurassic Park, an effort was made to produce computer-animated dinosaurs of natural appearance and organic behavior, and to merge these characters seamlessly with live-action film footage. We describe the overall process, showing videotaped examples of various stages."
"The making of the CG Jurassic Park" by ILM
10. HW #6 due 10/12: Morph yourselves into each other
11. Eric Enderton's handout
13. (Tu 10/10) Mike Collery (PDI): Mike covered some of the history of Computer Animation in film from the 1970s to the present, covering "Tron", "The Last Starfigher", and some of PDI's work in "Angels in the Outfield". He then talked a bit about the economics of the Computer Graphics industry.
"Compilation: Film Reel A, Demo Reel #228 Batman Trailer" by PDI
"Opera Industriel","Zycon","Chromasaurus","Burning Love","Brick-a-Brac" by PDI
"CAT","Locomotion","Gas Planet","Sleepy Guy" by PDI
"The Simpsons -- Finals cut until Animatic" by PDI
14. (Th 10/12) Ed Catmull (PIXAR): A Brief History of the Use of Computers in Animation, starting with his work at NYIT and The University of Utah and concluding with his work at Pixar. HW #7 : Create a story and storyboard for your final animation
"NYIT and Utah footage" by Ed Catmull
"Toy Story (trailer #1)" by PIXAR
15. (Tu 10/17) Dan Wexler (PDI): Dan talked about PDI's work to create a "Digital Stuntman" for the movie "Batman Forever". This is the 6-second scene when Batman leaps off the roof of a six hundred foot high building and abruptly arrests his fall with his cape. He discussed many issues involved in the process, from combining data from different companies, and animation and rendering issues.
12. Creating a Digital Stuntman for Batman Forever
"Digital Stuntman for Batman Forever" by PDI
16. (Th 10/19) Usual teaching staff: We reviewed assignment #7, which was to create a story and corresponding storyboard, from which the class heard and chose the best four stories. Then we divided into groups which would work on the four stories. We also saw how to use the program "Typestry" by Pixar.
Demo of Typestry features
13. HW #8 due 10/26: Use Typestry to create a credits movie
14. Typestry Quick reference
15. Typestry detailed reference (given only to animation teams)
17. (Tu 10/24) Bob Full (UCB): Bob discussed "lessons from many-legged locomotors": how by studying animal and insect locomotors they were able to calculate the dynamics of walking and running motions, and come up with unit-less quantities in which they could compare all locomotors.
"Walking Robots" by Mark Raibert's Robotics lab
Video footage of software and animal locomotors by Berkeley's Legged Locomotion Lab
18. (Th 10/26) Usual teaching staff: We discussed problems people might have been having with Assignment 7, and what the grand vision of the final animation is. We talked about the various components of 'Looks' and what was the difference between 2-D and 3-D textures. Then we learned about hierarchical modeling, inheritance and what components of an object get inherited. HW #9 : Final Animation done in 4-person groups
Typestry modeling
19. (Tu 10/31) Usual teaching staff: We learned about how we build 3-D models, from points to line or polygons to objects to groups. We also talked about benefits and limitations of polygon-based modeling, why triangles are good, how Delauney triangulation works, and what faceted edges are and how we might resolve them.
20. (Th 11/2) Usual teaching staff: We saw our two workhorse applications, Infini-D and Strata Studio Pro, and learned how to model in both of them.
Infini-D and Strata Studio Pro
21. (Tu 11/7) Dave Haumann (PIXAR): Dave talked about his work with physically-based simulations, beginning with simple mass-spring models, through which he could model bridge cables and tanzan vines. When vector fields were added, he was able to simulate flags and curtains as well. Later he realized that by setting a 'break-tolerance' for a link and seeding a model with a random set of these tolerances, he could get the model to 'shatter', and could even propagate the break to neighboring links. He then experimented with time-varying vector fields, including vortices, sources, sinks and uniform fields. He simulated leaves blowing in these fields. He then expanded his model of leaves, picked a leaf shape that floated nicely, and showed a movie illustrating his work. Then he showed a model of a hummingbird and a control system which he used to control the flight of the bird to follow a cursor (or flower on a hat on a person on a seesaw, as in the video he showed).
16. The bevarioral test-bed: obtaining complex behavior from simple rules
17. Animation Aerodynamics
18. The Control of Hovering Flight for Computer Animation
Ohio State work with Mass/Spring Simulations
Balloon Guy by Dave Haumann & Chris Wedge
Siggraph '90 breakable teapot
"Leaf Magic" by Dave Haumann
Hummingbird simulations
22. (Th 11/9) Peter Litwonowicz (APPLE): Peter described "Inkwell", his 2 1/2-D animation system he developed while at Apple, and his general meta-principle for animation that you should be able to reuse your work. In his system, once you define the motion of the patches, you can plug in different 2-D characters which will follow the same motion paths. He then showed us "Trip down memory lane" and explained how the film was produced. We'll never forget the "Dahling---make me a martini. Very dry, and just whisper the word vermouth." line.
19. "Trip down memory lane" story
20. "Trip down memory lane" storyboard
21. Inkwell, A 2 1/2-D Animation System
22. Animating Images with Drawings
23. Facial Animation by Spatial Mapping
"Trip down memory lane" by Pete Litnowitz, and others
"Inkwell Demo" by Pete Litnowitz, and others
"The Art of Talking Pictures" by Pete Litnowitz
23. (Tu 11/14) John Berton (ILM): John talked about his background and the history and background of computer graphics, with detailed examples from video.
"Man meets Pong" by Ohio State students
"French kiss object morph" by Ohio State students
"Ray Tracing image" by Robert Conley
"Flying logos" by Cranston / CSURI
"Vector paper plane" by Robert Abel & Co.
"Snoot and Muttly" by Ohio State students, Susan Van Baerle and Doug Kingsbury
"Genesis Effect" by Lucasfilm CG group
"The Last Starfighter" by Digital Produtions
"Stella & Stanley in 'Breaking the Ice'" by Digital Productions and Symbolics, Inc.
"Luxo, Jr" by PIXAR
"Sherlock Holmes Stained Glass Man" by ILM / Lucasfilm CG group
"The Abyss" by ILM
"Terminator 2" by ILM
"Jurassic Park" by ILM
"Casper" by ILM
24. (Th 11/16) Usual teaching staff: We saw how to edit Quicktime movies with Avid Videoshop. We learned how to import any sound (CD / tape / voice / sound effect) into the mac using Videoshop and SoundApp.
Quicktime sound/video editing demo with Avid Videoshop
"Hunger" by Marceli Wein (mwein@WatCGL.UWaterloo.CA)
"Andre and Wally B." by PIXAR
25. (Tu 11/21) Laetitia Sonami / David Wessel (UCB): Laetitia Sonami's presentation was joint with Prof. David Wessel and was held at the Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT), 1750 Arch Street, Berkeley. Laetitia, a performer and hardware developer for interactive music, described various evolutions of a midi dataglove controller (which could also have been used to input realtime motion into an animation system) and explained the final reactive performanc system she had helped design. David explained the charter of CNMAT, gave a demo of multiple oscillators, sound morphing, and escorted us on a tour through CNMAT where we heard a recording from the world's first Charlie Parker simulator.
Realtime Interactive system
Sound morphing and multiple oscillators
26. (Th 11/23) No Class! Thanksgiving Holiday...Go See Toy Story!
27. (Tu 11/28) Oren Jacob (PIXAR): Oren spoke about the details of his work with Toy Story, showed the 'Behind-the-scenes of Toy Story' video and explained it from his perspective as a Senior Technical Director.
"Behind-the-scenes of Toy Story" by Pixar
28. (Th 11/30) Jason Shiga (UCB): Jason showed his 37 minute reel of work he had done entitled "Here Comes Shiga", then fielded questions afterward. We also filled out class surveys.
"Here Comes Shiga" by Jason Shiga
29. (Tu 12/5) Usual teaching staff: We discussed splines and color theory.
30. (Th 12/7) Usual teaching staff: We summarized the course, suggested ideas for students who wanted to do more with animation, and saw the final animations.; "Smiley's Big Adventure" by Igor "Iggy" Shvartzman, Dina Bahgat, Thomas Kelley, and Jacqueline Jon; "The Hard Target" by August Harrison, Chris Wright, Joseph Hou, and Eddie Marquez; "Hammer & Nail" by Robert Wariua, Stephanie Lee, Neha Wickramasekaran, and Jeff Shneidman; "The Fly" by John Young, Jay Liao, Nabil Ahmad, and Helen Gee

WWW Maven: Dan Garcia (ddgarcia@cs.berkeley.edu)

Send me feedback