Abstract:

High-quality animation takes a long time to complete. This means university students rarely get a true production experience due to the limitations of a fifteen-week semester. In many animation group projects, the animator's role depends on several other steps in the pipeline, and animators often do not get to use the entire class time working within the production in a way that mimics the animation industry. Novel approaches to efficiency were implemented at East Tennessee State University's Digital Media Program to develop a production pipeline that allows animators (both 2D and 3D) to maximize the time dedicated to learning within their own discipline.

Projects get bogged down in pre-production and in developing the story. It is also uncommon for students to complete their animations in enough time to allow for a full post-production cycle for a film project. This paper details methods implemented in a 3D animation Production course as well as a 2D animation course to maximize meaningful student experience by minimizing the need for pre-production and post-production and relegating those parts of the film to outside of the class structure.

Keywords:

Technology, education, animation, art, pipeline.