This teaching beginners stuff is tricky. Ideally I should make a list of everything that needs to be taught and cross them off as each lesson gets to them

Starting anew... a somewhat more thought-through plan:

Lesson 0 Quickstart
-installation?
-first model: lathe a vase
-basic splining: the CP, the spline, the patch
-basic navigation: zoom, move, turn
-basic file handling: save the vase and reload it.

Lesson 1 Flash Gordon Rocket launch
- a quick project that does something cool
-lathe parts for rocket ship
-use duplicator wizard
-path constraint
-simple channel edit.
assignment: lathe some household objects.

Lesson 2 Basic bouncing ball: the atom of all character animation

- making a sphere from scratch
- elemental keyframing: advancing the time and repositioning the ball
- introduce the different channel interpolations: spline , zero-slope, hold, linear
- none of those make proper bouncing ball motion! So...
- editing the channels to create proper bouncing ball motion

Lesson 3 Egg bot: first character

- constructing the eggbot
- more lathing and scaling of splines
- basic render settings


Lesson 4 rigging the eggbot
-addingbones to a model
-CP weighting
-bone heirarchy
-the trouble with FK
-CP weighting
-constraints introduced
-simple IK leg built



Lesson 5 Eggbot broad jump: first character animation

-Keyframing basics: keyframing filters
-Keyframing workflow
-Blocking out main poses
-basic body mechanics concepts: object move in arcs. objects have mass. objects have inertia.
-refining and editing channels



Lesson x Eggbot walk cycle
-because everyone wants to do a walk.


Lesson x full body posing (this would be like the current "strike a pose" lesson in TAoA:M)
might use the Knight for this
student would pick four emotions from a list and try to show each one as a still pose.
Overacting strongly encouraged!


Lesson x Monsieur Candle
-modeling beyond lathing
-stitching in new splines
-5-point patches
-basic face rigging concepts


Lesson x simple face and dialog animation



Lesson x a more conventional human head


Lessons to follow in an order yet to be determined...
-everything else!


Obviously there are still many gaps to be explored and filled in.

-texturing
-lighting
-understanding the PWS


Comment and discuss, if you may...

The v0.02 list is looking very solid.

I'm glad you put a question mark after installation.
Installation is a critical step but I wonder if there might not be a better approach to its placement. Perhaps it could be referenced as an Appendix/Attachment at the end of TaoA:M?

The rational is that while of critical importance, installation is an entirely technical matter and troubleshooting may require seeking help (back of book, tech wiz, chatroom, forum, etc.). Quite often installation issues are operating system related and have little or nothing to do with A:M. As such, the distinction seems important and TaoA:M begins after the installation ends. Installation itself is a different manual... one that can and likely should change independently.

Suggestion: Perform an appendectomy on the installation and place it somewhere else (i.e. as an Appendix). As necessary, the reader can be referred here to a forum helpdesk. The title might be something obvious like... 'Installation Troubleshooting'.

One thing I think new users would like is a tour of all the buttons on the screen, but i don't like doing it all at once. I should find a way to sneak that in over several lessons.

I was just imagining how long it would take to run through all of the buttons from start to finish without any specific goal in mind. That'd still take quite a while to get through the tour. Of course there are also the alternatives such as what happens when you click a button with the Control Key held down too.

Perhaps as all of the lessons firm up we could track all the buttons used and then find a place to fit in the remainder that went unused.

A tour of the buttons would be popular and nowdays with the browser's ability to link to a specific frame/time in a movie (for instance on Youtube) that could be quite useful.

Ah that it is, that it is
In the past I've taught stone carving/masonry and been a motorcycle instructor!
But as Rodney says, you're off to a good start. But it will take time.



If the new improved TAoAM is a collection of video tutorials and PDFs, then having a chapter on installing the software seems to me outside the scope and aims of the new work.
Surely the sensible thing would be to do the same as other software out there and have a "Read Me First" file in the download package or the install CD, that takes you through the install process for Windows & Mac's and is not something that Rob needs to get into explaining.
I first got A:M: as a boxed CD and by the time I opened the TAoAM I had already installed the software!


Maybe give a brief overview of the interface and all those mysterious buttons on the screen at the outset but keep it brief. Far better to introduce them a few at a time and within the context of doing something with them. Otherwise its just a mass of unconnected information which clutters the mind and slows the learning process.

I have a copy of an Apple Pro Training book for Final Cut Express and like A:M: there are a lot of on screen controls and key combinations to remember. To much to be just thrown at you.
Their approach to introducing this mountain of information goes something like this;
Each chapter introduces new things a bit at a time. Each new chapter builds on the previous one and often repeats actions and steps from those previous chapters. This reinforces the memory of them.
At the end of each lesson there is a summery of what you have just done in the form of questions and answers. And lastly a list of all the keyboard shortcuts used in that lesson. Again sometimes these key combinations are repeated. But repetition is good for the memory.

I say forget all the beginners. Lets concentrate on expanding and making tutorials on lesser known features for high end users.
I fo rone would love a tutorial on how to make a video on HDRI image based lighting on animation not just a still.

How is it not working for animation?

I don't understand.

You said you wanted to know how to use it for ...

While I empathize with the sentiment, why not both? I'd love to see comprehensive tutorials on HDRI, hair, SSS, and openEXR. My fear is that the number of people on this forum who understand these topics well enough to create in-depth tutorials is in the low single digits. It is even hard to find a good text on these topics that can be extrapolated to the AM controls. It may even be unrealistic to think a short tutorial on these topics can teach proficiency. Too bad some of the TDs from Pixar don't give courses on Animation Mentor. Maybe move it to another thread and get the ball rolling.

As to the original purpose of this thread. I like the .02 lesson plan as an introduction to AM. I'm even willing to volunteer to do one of the tutorials once the topics start being divvied up. My only critique would be that making an integrated lesson plan to create generalists is perhaps too bold. Even the studios don't teach everyone modeling, rigging, and animation. I hope we can structure things so someone can concentrate solely on modeling or solely on animation with the existing library of models. I might even limit rigging to installation of one of the existing modern rigs. We already have excellent technical info on 2008, Squetch, and TSM2. I guess my point here is that we don't need to lead someone into the abyss of "constraints" before they learn to make a walk cycle. Maybe start animation 101 sooner with provided rigged models and then made animating homemade rigged models as a second pass or 201 type lesson.

Looks well thought out, I look forward to helping out.

If do you find a good text on practical application of HDRI lighting in any software let me know.

I suspect most of what a good text on that would teach would be similar to a good text on real world lighting of which there are almost too many books to choose from.





This is where my view differs from most. I think most A:M users will need to be at least entry-level generalists to see a path to getting their project done and feel not mystified by A:M's powers.

I dont' think anyone will be too disadvantaged because there were three tuts that taught rigging instead of one. I also don't think rigging is some inherently complicated thing that is beyond most A:M users. It only seems that way because it hasn't been taught right.

Everything in NewTAoA:m is still going to be pretty much introductory level stuff. After that they can concentrate anything they want that interests them.

I do appreciate your insights, Bruce, none-the-less.

the lighting lesson...

Lesson x "Morning, Noon, Night. Interior, Exterior."

This lesson would take a scene somewhat like this and show how to make it look like high noon, sunset, night, and overcast by adjusting a few lights

There is probably some way to do the same concept for interior lighting, from a single electric bulb in the ceiling to office lighting with banks of fluorescent lights.

I am completely on board with the OMOC (one man, one computer) philosophy but would just remind you of just how steep the learning curve is and how much work it takes to make even a simple animation, much less a film that tells a story. The two of us have invested thousands of hours learning film making with AM.

Since we transitioned from the list, more that 12,000 people have joined the forum. I assume almost all bought at least one license, convinced that animation with AM is as easy as the Homer Simpson walking demo shows. I suspect everyone who bought AM had a vision of a CG movie in mind and expected to be able to learn the software and make their short in perhaps the time it takes to master a video game.

Even with Rodney's Patience-of-Job handholding them through TAO:AM, only a few hundred have shown any animation on the forum at all. Fewer than 120 people (1%) have posted what I would call a film.

I agree that in order to make a film in the OMOC realm one needs to become a proficient generalist. I appreciate your effort to improve TAO:AM in order improve about a three sigma success rate of realizing people's vision of making a movie. Just like the first mission of a video game makes sure you can kill off bad guys right out of the box, the illusion of early success breeds the confidence to go on and learn the one hundred other skills you will need to get to the end.

I'm really trying express my view that getting nubies some early apparent success may keep more of them engaged longer. If their vision is an animated gag, an animation track that teaches body and limb movement with lip syncing of an already rigged model can get that early success. They can learn modeling and rigging when their project calls for it with the confidence they can animate. Maybe walking them through a one act gag with Shaggy.

If modeling and making CG photos are the vision, I think your lesson plan on splinemanship and modeling are spot on and animation skills can wait. I don't think there are many with the vision of rigging (sorry David) so I think it can be treated as a necessary evil to complete projects that can wait until the core animation and/or modeling skills are learned.

You know, it should would be nice to poll the thousands of people who have never gotten anything useful out of AM on the reasons they abandoned all hope. We've all done it but it is ashamed when you buy something that appears to be fun and can't get it to work like you want. AM does work. It sure would be nice to know where they gave up so we can get them past these sticking points. If you are out there watching and got stuck, please speak up. Don't be shy!!

Rob, I'm with you on this and just want be sure we are thinking it through.

I don't expect that most will make a film. I do expect that most will want to do more than purely modeling. They are in it for the animation somehow.

The low end of home animation where people want to use pre-existing assets is gobbled up by Poser and whatever that website is where you type in dialog and some characters mouth it with a robot voice. A:M can't compete with that niche.

A:M's niche is people who want to model and animate something of their own, original or fan-inspired, people who want to do "real" 3D, stuff "like" what they see in a movie. For that, A:M's competition is Maya or Blender and A:M is way easier for that purpose than either of those.

Those people are getting stuck at rigging and that's where we lose them. They get stuck because a) they don't understand why it's necessary and/or b ) they dont' understand CP weighting. Present it right and those don't have to be problems.

that's a good observation. There needs to be a "cool" factor to each project.

And that's inclining me to sneak rigging into otherwise cool projects bit-by-bit, as needed, rather than section it off in its own tuts.

Well said Bruce.

I'd like to comment on this aspect:


In my experience, relatively few have actually taken the time to work through all of the exercises in TaoA:M. However, almost without exception, those who have successfully completed TaoA:M have exercised the basic skillset required to create their own CG movies. They can do it. They may not be up to PIXAR level quality but they now know how to approach that. When faced with the harsh reality of the work required some simply decide they had best attend to other priorities first.

It should be said that most of those who will be most successful will apply their experience and interest to the effort that they gained even before they purchased the program; in other words they aren't newbies in the true sense of that term. Many simply exploit A:M for it's greater potential to augment what they've already got going. The people that see a PIXAR movie and think "Cool. I'd like to do that." aren't as likely to pick up TaoA:M and read through it. Few acknowledge the number of people it takes to create a PIXAR movie or how many more required in promotion and distribution. Some fall short... "It's too hard." "I can't do it." And even if you write/record every possible tutorial, the solutions they seek will elude them. Conversely, accross the board that 1% will be successful at pretty much anything they set their mind to do. But here is the real secret... on a reasonable and realistic scale... everyone can do it.

There are two primary obstacles for A:M Users; orientation and confidence. Those picking up TaoA:M don't often see how everything comes together for the greater good or where they fit into the scheme of it all. They have a hard time seeing themselves being successful in a small (or even one person) virtual studio that even Walt Disney himself would have been highly envious of. They don't get all that. All they see is a book.

No one is a complete newbie. Everyone can bring something useful, something powerful and something relevant to the program. (newbie was likely a term coined by someone with a penchant for feeling superior... and while occasionally useful is with regard to rites of passage... at its core is derogatory)

Fair enough, let's get on with it.

This seems to be a very logical approach. It doesn't matter whether the project is small or huge, a technical director (or someone wearing that hat) will need to be consulted at some point in every project, if only to improve the lighting, document a new approach or plus up the final rendering just a notch.

Somewhere in the dusty corners of my room I've got an early attempt to break down a technical director's description from TaoA:M and summarize what technical directors contribute to a project. The main thing I recall from it is the title,which is in the tradtion of fun TaoA:M titles. In this case it was, "Don't get technical with me!" which is something of a play off of the long held tradition of rivalry (art versus ingenuity) and the emotions that arise as new technologies and techniques are folded into production.

Bottom line: Having a good grasp of that 'technological stuff' will not only make you a better animator it will (at least in theory) help you communicate more effectively with those who are not.

This is a slight cleanup of the above. New parts are bolded. It's still an awkward sequence of lessons and I do not regard it as finished yet.

Lesson 0 Quickstart

-first model: lathe a vase
-basic splining: the CP, the spline, the patch
-basic navigation: zoom, move, turn
-basic file handling: save the vase and reload it.

Lesson 1 Flash Gordon Rocket launch
- a quick project that does something cool
-lathe parts for rocket ship
-use duplicator wizard
-path constraint
-simple channel edit.
assignment: lathe some household objects.

Lesson 2 Basic bouncing ball: the atom of all character animation

- making a sphere from scratch
- elemental keyframing: advancing the time and repositioning the ball
- introduce the different channel interpolations: spline , zero-slope, hold, linear
- none of those make proper bouncing ball motion! So...
- editing the channels to create proper bouncing ball motion

Lesson 3 Egg bot: first character

- constructing the eggbot
- more lathing and scaling of splines
- basic render settings


Lesson 4 rigging the eggbot
-addingbones to a model
-CP weighting
-bone heirarchy
-the trouble with FK
-CP weighting
-constraints introduced
-simple IK leg built



Lesson 5 Eggbot broad jump: first character animation

-Keyframing basics: keyframing filters
-Keyframing workflow
-Blocking out main poses
-basic body mechanics concepts: object move in arcs. objects have mass. objects have inertia.
-refining and editing channels

Lesson x FW-150 (the original TAoA:M exercise)
-because it deals mostly with extrusion and introduces rotoscopes


Lesson x Surfacing
- decals and materials are introduced
- Spaceship and eggbot models are used as test objects for surfaceing

Lesson x Eggbot walk cycle
-because everyone wants to do a walk.

Lesson x Morning, noon, night
-light placement to create different looks, outdoor and indoor
-light types and properties

Lesson x installing a premade rig
(a duel may be required to decide which premade rig gets spotlighted here but I dont' want it to be AM2001.)
It would be cool if, prior to this the student had made a full humanoid biped to use for this but I'm not sure what that character would be.

Lesson x full body posing (this would be like the current "strike a pose" lesson in TAoA:M)
might use the Knight for this
student would pick four emotions from a list and try to show each one as a still pose.
Overacting strongly encouraged!


Lesson x Monsieur Candle
-modeling beyond lathing
-stitching in new splines
-5-point patches
-basic face rigging concepts


Lesson x simple face and dialog animation



Lesson x a more conventional human head


Lessons to follow in an order yet to be determined...
-everything else!


Obviously there are still many gaps to be explored and filled in.


-understanding the PWS and A:M files

I am ready ro start again

Steve

Perhaps a basic Patch Image intro could be added to Lesson 0 Quickstart (ala Greg Rostami's demo) to introduce the concept of texturing of surfaces.

Note: I'm not convinced the surfacing info should be added in the Quickstart as this might unnecessarily lengthen it so if not optimal to be covered in the Quickstart perhaps a tagline can be added that would suggest those who want to texture their vase can skip forward to Lesson x Surfacing, then return back there to continue. This might require Lesson x Surfacing to begin with small bit discussing texturing the Vase (or inverting the vase to make a rocket... a handy reference to Lesson 1 that suggests the student can follow the Lessons sequentially and still arrive at the Surfacing lesson).

A stray thought that came to mind... so I'll add it here.

After running through the Bouncing Ball exercise it might be good to suggest the student bounce the Vase.

This might cue in a later lesson on Newton Dynamics or Storytelling. For instance it can emphasize the classic (Bounce, Bounce, Bounce... wait for it.... Crash) element of establishing comedic timing, Anticipation, beats and phrasing so essential to effective animation.

yet another lesson x I think needs a space...

Lesson x Customizing the interface
-making and changing keyboard shortcuts
-using multiple monitors
-docking and undocking panels
-changing the "appearance" scheme
-adding new buttons to panels and creating new panels

an example project might be to make a new panel that mimics the number pad buttons (possibly useful for laptop users).

Click to view attachment

Nice one.

I need to set that up on my laptop.

Id like to contribute to the official taoam. I am willing to work on this lesson. Let me know if thats acceptable and I will take on the task. I will make a thread showing results so everyone can give their 2 cents and I will update it as advised.

Fabulous! Do it.

We need to come up with some sort of standard screen capture size.

My standard is 1280x800 but it may be best to be 16x9 which is 1280x720. The higher more common HD format is 1920x1080 and I can do that but a due to file size I recommend we throttle back to 720p the next tear down in HD.

Am I good to go on 1280x720? or should I do 1280x800? or should I put it to a vote?

I prefer something resembling a 4:3 monitor but maybe that's too old-fashioned. We need it to fit on most monitors without scaling.

1024x768 is the lowest monitor res people commonly operate at today. Its share is dropping but still used by a seventh of people on the web.

We should consider youtube formats they have 720 and 1080 formats

960x720 would be a 4:3 size that accomodate Youtube and people playing Quicktimes on their 1024x768 monitors.

What do we think?

FWIW, here's the monitor-res share of 3951 visitors to my 2Dwannabe blog

Click to view attachment



If we could get a chart like that for a widely trafficked* CG site that would be illuminating.





*Doesn't that "k" in "trafficked" look medieval?

Most of the time when I read/do a tutorial using online media (video or written), I like to try it out. That means I like having both the program and the tut up and open simultaneously, side by side. Therefore, for me, the smaller capture size is better. I more than likely will resize it, if necessary. I don't care about the aspect ratio of a tut.

I want tuts to be a reasonable size to quickly, easily download, and I don't want it to consume inordinate resources, screen space from the software in which I am trying it out.

If it is a video tut, I prefer to be able to scrub thru frame by frame. Youtube ain't so good for that.

We may also need to think about an A:M color scheme that captures most bestest. The default may make it hard to see the black grid against the dark background.

Here's a quick comparison of who each capture res would be able to reach.

The left is different monitor resolutions and their share of the users.
The top is possible screen capture resolutions.

Click to view attachment


The green are combinations where the entire screen capture and player interface will fit on the monitor screen

The purple are combinations where the screen capture could fit if the player interface wasn't there(awkward)

The red are combinations where the screen capture won't fit without scaling the image down.


The bottom numbers are the percentages who are in "green"

A Lesson x that might not be a core TAoA:M chapter but included in "good things to know":

Lesson x Codecs and file formats
-
-how to choose a codec
-how to use A:M to re-compress
-how to use QT Pro to re-compress


Or possibly this might be in a lesson on "rendering", although I think rendering shoudl be intoruduced as needed inthe regualr chapters.


There are some many things about A:M that are interlinked their usefulness that it is difficult to separate them out.

I can handle that tutorial as well if you wish.

I highly recommend we make our tutorials 1280x720p or higher. Lynda.com, total training have been using this resolution for at least 4 years.


Quick story. I used to work heavily in DVD. I remember a meeting with a high profile director and the heads of our encoding department. Remember this was like 1999.
The director who made a little movie called E.T. wanted to increase the quality of DVD. He was not happy with the results. Believe it or not the mpeg 2 back then was not as high a quality is mpeg 2 is today. Or at least the hardware to convert film and video to mpeg-2 did not produce the same results back then. You may notice this on older titles in terms of compression and micro or macro blocking especial in blacks and rapid movement like wip pans where every pixel is changing on a frame by frame basis.

Anyways The heads of the department suggested to the director that he should film his movies specifically for DVD, meaning no wip pans or extremely dark scenes. I remember they also suggested no long shots, to stick to close ups.

I will never forget the directors reaction. It was so perfectly juxtapose against how serious they were with their suggestion and they had put a lot of thought into it.

Lets just say he thought they were joking at best , and if they weren't he thought they were idiots. He didnt say that but you could read his face and reaction.

He explained that he would never take that advice because new formats come and go all the time and it was up to the technology to catch up to his standard of film making.

To be honest thats how I feel. people will eventually upgrade to larger monitors or dual monitor or higher resolution monitors. Internet speeds will always get faster and cheaper. So lets not lower our standards. Lets make movies that will remain up to date.

Think about it but dont' jump into making it yet. Lets see how much of it gets covered along the way.

here's A:M at 1200x720(864,000 pixels) and 1024x768 (786,432 pixels)

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment


They both look impossibly small now on my 1280x1024 monitor, but I survived for years at 1024x768 somehow. Of course I didn't get much done until i got a second monitor to spread out the PWS.

We definitely want to encourage them to get a second monitor eventually. Used monitors are cheap these days.

First of I would say they should buy a 16:10 / 16:9 display. These things will very likely have resolutions of 1680 x 1050 or something like that... maybe higher and that is something you can work with....
But 1024 x 768-resolution for graphical work is just not really suiting... that is okay for office-work, but even there people tend to use higher resolutions.
Since A:M does not run on tablett-pcs (at least most of them... asus slate could be an exception) and very likely a netbook is not powerful enough to produce stuff in a reasonable way, I would they
we can go for higher resolutions. 720p should be enough to do most things (of if you wish to use 4:3 use 1289 x 1024 / yyyy)....

Of course it would even be better to use a second monitor to view the tutorials on and work with A:M on the other one....

The common resolutions for laptops today are 1366x768 or higher... (i cant see why they are not higher... my 15" Acer-laptop from years ago had a resolution of 1400 x 1050 or something like that....)
720p would be okay for me.


See you
*Fuchur*

So can we agree on 720p or should we have a vote/poll?

What if we used 960x720 for the ones that don't need widescreen?

Do they still make 4x3 monitors or tv's?

I really think that we need to fallow suit with company's like apple, Ripple training, Lynda taining, and total training. It just does not make sense to go against the grain.

A compromise could be to encode the tuts in 2 resolutions High and low.

1280x720 and 960x720. The 960x720 will be distorted though.

One case I can think of is Wacom that gave up on their widescreen Cintiq and went back to their 4:3


But go ahead and try one at 1280x720. You're going to do it over again anyway.

Anyone have a great use for the "Tools" tab in the "Customize" dialog?

Simple and easy to understand fact about 16:9 instead of 4:3:
- 16:9 looks more up to date...

If you want to promote a software to be high technology, cool and up to date, it doesnt make sense to make video-tutorials in an old looking way for it...

Lets do i at 1280 x 720 (but dont waste 50 fps on it... (so that it would be true 720p). Use 25 or 20 fps... that should result in much smaller filesizes and nobody will miss the frames for such a tutorial).

See you
*Fuchur*

PS: Tools-Tab > I use it for Photoshop... it is faster to activate it from there than from the Start-menu... anyway it is just a small advantage...

Make sure you talk about all the weird stuff about splining, like when you click on a cp to add a spline, and it extends the spline you didn't expect, what to do. And simple stuff that trips up beginners, like when you click to add a spline and you see nothing, check to see that you aren't in "9" view, whatever you call it.

UI tools: not all in one tute, but not spread all over the place either. Teach them in three or four groups.

Can you tell me a bit more about both those cases? I have a vague idea of what you mean.

So 1280x720 it is.

Robert has appeared to sign off on its approval.

Ultimately I'd like to have a title/splash screen at the front of each tut that brands them all together and then possibly follow that with a brief live shot of the presenter...

"Hi, I'm ____________ and I want to tell you more about..."


to put a human face on it.

Jason, when you are covering the extra buttons that are in the Customize dialog, it's not necessary to explain what every button does, but point out that they can click on any button in that display to get a text description of what it does.

Of course, when you are demonstrating adding buttons to a panel you probably will want to explain what that particular button does that made it worth adding, why you find it valuable.

The answer to "Why would I want to do this?" should always be evident.