Animation & Visual Effects (MA)

Setup lighting, green screen, and tracking markers the way professional VFX supervisors understand for both studio post-production and Indie type "guerrilla" filmmaking. You'll learn new digital camera operation and sensor types and how to best record on set VFX elements for successful compositing and integration with digital elements.

Gain perspective. To learn the size and structure of an animation film production unit, you'll analyze animated feature films, focusing on layout design, value, and structure.

Master your ability to draw proportionally accurate figures, both nude and clothed, for entertainment art. You'll study anatomy, proportion, foreshortening, construction, movement and gesture, making simple still lifes and tonal self-portraits.

Experience what it's like to work as an assistant animator. To increase your ink and paint skills, you'll learn digital and traditional tools to create a finished full color scene from rough animation.

Explore computer animation theory, focusing on character development. You'll study traditional animation techniques, motion and animation vocabulary, secondary motion, and line of action.

Learn to navigate this complex 3D software and its many tools and workflows as they are used in major animation and VFX studios, preparing you for specialized study in the track of your choice.

Learn how to render beautiful animations, just like your favorite studios. You'll learn core principles of looked and lighting, including painting in 3D, how to work with BRDF shaders, linear lighting, animation caches, compositing of render passes, and much more.

Learn advanced compositing techniques such as keying, float color space, and tracking. You'll focus on developing your artistic eye, attention to detail, troubleshooting skills, and maintaining rigorous image quality standards.

Explore the different types of geometry in Maya (polygon, nurbs, and subdivision), focusing on polygonal and subdivision surfaces. You'll get the basic and advanced tools needed to enhance the modeling experience in Maya.

Produce animation for TV, features, games, and storyboards. Working from live models, you'll maintain a sketchbook showing your design flexibility, sequential drawing for animated performance, line-of-action, and volume control skills in a variety of styles.

Master modeling techniques like texturing, shading, and character set-up. Using nurbs, polygon, and subdivision modeling, you'll finish at least one demo reel of quality modeling for your final project. (This course is cross-listed with ANM 313.)

Lighting can determine both what the audience sees and how they feel. You'll learn advanced lookdev techniques, such as grooming hair and rendering cloth fibers down to the thread level, as well as advanced lighting techniques and tricks of the trade used by cinematographers to create stunning animated shots. (This course is cross-listed with ANM 353.)

Gain various ink, paint, and compositing skills to work in digital commercial animation production. You'll learn storyboarding, animatics, painting, compositing, and post-production. (This course is cross-listed with ANM 368 and ANM 848.)

Gain skills to setup 3D characters for animation. Starting with the basic concepts of rigging you’ll move to more complex topics like FK/IK creation, spine setup, and how to work with deformers.

Model organic characters like professional visual effect studio modelers. This course further develops comprehensive instruction in Zbrush software for high resolution organic modeling. Course concepts include model retopology, character concept design, polypainting and texturing, transform and decimation tools, and rendering model turntables. (This course is cross-listed with ANM 413.)

This course will introduce you to the virtual animation and visual effects production pipeline. This course will teach you how to work in Unreal Engine and why we use it in virtual production. We will explore the proper real-time production methods, how to work with physical VR trackers, and how to incorporate green screen as well.

You'll use cinematic composition, atmospheric use of color, and color continuity to complete a sixteen-frame color script. (This course is cross-listed with VIS 380 and ANM 880.)

Concentrate on NURBS modeling. You'll learn to convert NURBS models into polygon models and explore the differences between polygonal and NURBS modeling. (This course is cross-listed with ANM 412.)

Become an illustrative storyteller. Taking a step-by-step approach to story development, you'll study the structural elements of storytelling, storyboarding formats, motion and animation, animatics, and character development.

Learn the unique character animation techniques of different professional studios. You'll study real-world weight, physics, object interaction, pantomime, character sketching, and motion analysis to animate 3D characters.

You'll apply character thinking, changes of emotion, and lip-sync animation to your current projects. [This course is cross-listed with ANM 321.]

To master the twelve principles of animation, you'll learn its terminology and history and practice storyboarding and character forms.

Strengthen your knowledge of animation. Focusing on inbetweening, flipping properly, pencil pressure and consistency of drawing, you'll learn simple character design, simple storyboards, and to use work sheets.

Prepare for your future career by learning what's expected of the professional in the animation, visual effects, and game industries. As an MFA candidate, you'll gain communication, collaboration, networking, marketing, and workplace pipeline skills.

Prepare for your future career by learning what's expected of the professional in animation. You'll gain communication, collaboration, networking, marketing, and workplace pipeline skills while polishing your portfolio.

To thrive in the animation studio environment, you must meet deadlines, utilize proper workflow, and maintain efficient professional practices. You'll be given individually tailored critiques, assignments, and directorial notes to help improve your work. (This course is cross-listed with ANM 820.)

Understand the skeletal and muscular systems of the human body. You'll investigate the complexities of the human form to enhance your figurative drawing skills.

You'll develop personal interpretations of the human form.

Learn skeletal construction and musculature by sculpting an anatomical representation of the human body with the skin removed. Using plasteline figures, you'll explore morphology, structural concepts, and rhythmic proportion. (This course is cross-listed with FASCU 270.)