Computer-Aided Technologies adds new degree emphasis

Drew Stone
News Writing Student

For decades, animation has been enjoyed through Saturday morning cartoons, video games, Web sites and feature films such as those from Disney and Pixar. Within the past few years, animation technology has changed in such a way that nearly all types of animation can be easily created by those who want to see art in motion, said Akram Taghavi-Burris, Computer-Aided Technologies professor and CAT Multimedia Options program director.

The CAT program is now offering Animation as an emphasis in addition to Computer-Aided Design, Multimedia and Game Design.

Students enrolled in the program can expect to find work in a variety of fields such as Web site development, video game development, television graphics or even dedicated animation studios, Taghavi-Burris said.

Whether it is traditional hand-drawn, stop motion, or two-dimensional and three-dimensional computer animation, she said, the degree program offered on campus covers it all.

“Students will learn traditional animation before moving on to 2D digital animation and eventually 3D,” Taghavi-Burris said. The animation sequence is taught in a series of five three-credit hour courses, each of which builds on the one before it.

Students begin with Principles of Animation, a class that teaches a brief history of animation before jumping into traditional hand-drawn animation, she said. Each frame is painstakingly drawn out and scanned into a computer where it is then stitched together. It takes 24 frames to make one second of fluid movement, Taghavi-Burris said.

“It’s a challenge tracking all the details on a frame-by-frame basis, but is quite rewarding once you see the finished product,” said Deann Stone, double-major in both art and animation.

Not everything is done with hand-drawn animation in the class. Some projects require students to get physical with props to create drawings in the unique stop-motion style seen in features such as “Gumby,” Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” and the 1964 classic “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

“I’ve really enjoyed the stop motion portion of the class,” said Robert Shackelford, animation major. “It integrates many traditional physical film aspects such as props and lighting with a unique animation style.”

Students are encouraged to take a creative writing class to aid in story development and are required to produce storyboards as part of the course. As a supplement to hand-drawn traditional animation and stop motion, the later courses will delve into new computer tools used across the industry, Taghavi-Burris said.

Principles of Animation is followed by 2D Animation, she said.

This class uses Adobe Flash, which has become one of the standard tools for 2D animation.

Adobe Flash has been used to produce animated television series such as Nickelodeon’s “Making Fiends” and Cartoon Network’s “Metalocalypse” and “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends.”

Three other classes follow 2D Animation that teach students 3D basics, character design and animation, and special effects using 3DStudio MAX.

“All the skills you learn in traditional 2D animation apply to 3D animation,” said Gary Dominguez, Student Computer Center supervisor and adjunct professor for 3D Computer Graphics. “3D is just another artist tool for visually presenting the story.”

To aid in content creation, the CAT program has recently received a grant for purchasing a variety of specialty equipment, said Tom Ashby, acting dean of the Department of Information Technology

“We hope to buy equipment that will benefit all the courses in the program, such as light boxes (which are used to overlay new frames with old frames to better judge movements), maquettes (which are used for visualizing poses and movements), and so on for helping students develop their characters,” Taghavi-Burris said.

Also being purchased are traditional animation tools such as cell paper, which will allow frames to be overlaid on backgrounds instead of drawing a new background for each frame, and peg bars, which hold and align the cell paper, along with digital drawing tablets to ease the transition between paper and the computer.

“Digital drawing tablets will help with character sketching to get the basic outlines which help modeling tremendously,” said Evan Hardesty, Game Design major and former 3D Character Animation student. “The tablets will help the students get their ideas out as if it were on paper, only in digital format.”

Principles of Animation will be offered again in the fall semester.

For more information about the program or classes, contact Taghavi-Burris at 405-682-1611, ext. 7498.