Hey guys,

My teacher is a professional Graphic Artist with programs of Photoshop and Illustrator. However, she just had the school district install AM v.12 onto our computers and she wants me to help her teach it, because I'm the only one who's ever used it in this class.

However, I taught myself and never really completed projects that required set time consumptions and were made to allow you to progress easily by gaining knowledge.

Could anyone give me an idea of what to have my teacher teach first, and maybe suggest a schedule which we could follow? I can try and find actual projects in the Student discussion area on the forum.

Thanks guys!

guamdude

I wouldn't know where to start. But I believe Hash have provisions for such situations. You might contact them direct. Or there might be a link to material on their site.

I think this is the link Ken refers to:
http://www.hash.com/edu/

As far as I know the online videos and the manual are the course.

You can find the majority of the exercise videos here:
http://www.hash.com/VM/

There is an outline file (MS Word format) at the very bottom of the page.
As an introduction to students the Animation history lessons (see links at the bottom of the video tutorials page) provide an Animation:Master-centric view that expertly places the student right in the middle of the world of computer animation.

The manual itself is a goldmine of information that isn't limited to 3D computer information.
It incorporates elements from traditional animation that students will need to know and it does it in a way that they can easily understand and apply in Animation:Master.

That's my initial take on the matter.
As Ken suggests you can contact Hash Inc and they can provide more information.

Best,
Rodney

Awesome. Thanks guys.

This was perfectly what I was looking for. However, we were foolin' around with it and she doesn't like how long the computers take to render and save cinematics, so we're only going to Model. I know I can find things on the tutorials site, and I think I'll have her (my teacher) start them on the tutorial of BASIC SPLINEMANSHIP or something like that, which is written by Mr. Jeff Cantin.

So now the question has changed: Have any ideas of good intro tutorials to modelling?

Like I said, I can easily get tutorials for modelling on the tutorials site, but if you know one specifically, then thank you.

Just modelling? That's a crying shame! Can't she still teach the animation side of ANIMATION: Master w/o the full-res rendering stuff, say maybe real-time quick-shaded short animations or something?
I mean modelling is fun, but, watching your character move : that's the real reward!!!

Just my two cents.

Set the render options to Real-time shaded, not final. Then rendering a scene only takes a second or two.

What you lose in rendering time you certainly will not make up in modeling time.
Animators first and foremost need to animate. If you get stuck in modeling you are more likely to ensure the failure of your aspiring animators rather than their success.

There are many ways to reduce render time.
Follow Will Sutton's suggestion or reduce the size of your imagery.
Then as the student finds more computer time they can attempt higher quality renders.

Modeling should not be ignored but it can be delayed until the artist knows what success looks like.

My 2 cents.
Rodney

And you could also try Final Rendering with Multipass on, set for 1 pass - will take longer than shaded mode - but you won't get the axis junk, and will be a better render.