The workshop offers a collection of master classes designed to sharpen artists’ game animation and storytelling skills. Courses begin September 8, 2014.
The Elite Games Animation Workshop 3 includes a series of live talks, demos, reviews, and assignments that are designed to resemble an actual games production pipeline. In the workshop, instructors focus on techniques for games animation, which include timing, creating strong body mechanics, posing characters, player reactions, responsiveness of action, and more. Students also learn how to create interactive battles, cinematics, staging, and integration with popular game engines such as Unity.
"Our Elite Games Workshop brings together students and top animation instructors from triple-A games studios around the world to share what it takes to excel in games animation today," says Richard Arroyo, Head of Games Animation, iAnimate.net. "We give our students the tools and techniques they need to showcase their true value and be industry ready for games studios."
The Courses and Instructors include:
Interactive Battles (weeks 1-2): Instructor Kevin Rucker, senior animator at Blizzard Entertainment, kicks off the workshop with the does and don’ts of game animation—from planning parametric sequence references to simplifying the approach to execution.
Workflow, Camera Theory, and Cameras in Practice (weeks 3-5): Instructor Simon Unger, lead animator at Robotoki, has more than 13 years professional animation experience and recently served as animation director on the award-winning
Hitman: Abosolution for Square Enix. Unger will cover the layout process, parametric animation, posing and framing as well as context, implementation, camera theory and cameras in practice, including basic composition, and how to stage a charcter on screen.
Creature Behaviors (weeks 6-7): Instructor Darryl Purdy, who before joining Eidos was animation director at Warner Bros. Games, Montreal , will use his more than 13 years experience in animation to demonstrate the process—from layout to blocking. Purdy will also cover aligning worlds, setting up sequences, the block-in process, straight ahead and layered animation techniques, and more.
Cinematic and Games Performance/Interactive Games Cinematics (weeks 8-9): Lead Cinematic Animator and Instructor David Lam has more than eight years experience in games animation, working on numerous triple A titles for prominent games studios such as Activision, Lucas Arts, Bungie and Naughty Dog. Lam’s courses focus on cinematics, performance, and interactive games, including animation over technology, using references or mocap, keyframing, Interactive Game Cinematics (IGC), and more.
Special Lecture: How We Did It (weeks 10-12): Instructor Kristjan Zadzuk, animation director at Ubisoft Toronto, has more than 15 years industry experience, including credits on Ubisoft’s
Splinter Cell Blacklist and
Assassin’s Creed. Zadzuk’s course is a special lecture covering “how we did it” for an existing game—from animation, blocking, and setting up sequences to animation tips and techniques, workflow, and more.
The Game Engine (weeks 13-14): Instructor Bennie Terry III has more than 18 years experience as an art director and technical director in the film and games industry, working with companies such as Rhythm & Hues, Disney, and Marvel. Terry will focus on game engine development and analyzing and integrating an animation system.
For more details or to apply for the Elite Games Animation Workshop 3, beginning September 8, 2014 and ending December 14, 2014, visit: www.ianimate.net/games-workshop-3-breakdown.html
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