Academic Year 2022-2023

CREATIVE 3D GRAPHICS

Teachers

Claudio Piciarelli
Unit Credits
9
Teaching Period
First Period
Course Type
Supplementary
Prerequisites. No required prerequisites
Teaching Methods. The beginning of the course will be based on frontal teaching, with the aim to let the students know the basic notions that will be needed in the rest of the course. Almost all of the remaining lessons will be focused on practical, laboratory activity. More specifically, the students will learn to use a professional software to test the notions of 3D graphics production, as they are explained by the teacher. The lab activity consists in the creation of several small projects.
Verification of Learning. The final exam consists in the production of an individual project. The project choice is free, as well as the adopted software (no need to use the same tools learned in the course). The project will be evaluated according to several factors, such as project organization, modelling, materials, lighting, animation (if applicable), concept/storytelling, general aesthetic quality. During the exam the student is required to discuss the project, explaining its technical choices. By the date of the exam, it is required to share the final result (render) with the teacher, e.g. using the file sharing system of our University (OneDrive).
More Information. Informations on blended activities:

* lesson recording: yes

* lesson streaming: yes

* lab-to-lab (UD-PN) streaming: no

* Use of the elearning platform: yes (publication of teaching materials, chat/forum)

* Online consultations: yes

Objectives
https://www.uniud.it/it/didattica/info-didattiche/regolamento-didattico-del-corso/LM-comunicazione-multimediale-tecnologie-informazione/all-B2
Contents
The goal of this course is to teach the basic concepts of 3D graphics production. The entire pipeline will be addressed, starting from the initial modelling steps to the last rendering stages. Topics: – Basic modelling: how to create 3D models using primitive shapes. Transformations. – Advanced modelling: how to create complex 3D models that cannot be described in terms of primitive shapes. Extrusions and other tools that do not preserve the object topology. – Shading: use of materials and textures, shading networks. Texture projections and UV unfolding . Direct lighting. – Indirect lighting: diffuse and indirect lighting techniques for photorealistic images – Animation: keyframe and path-based animation. Animation of objects and cameras. Working with the animation curves. Animating more objects together and specific object parts. Humanoid animation with skeletons.
Texts
The students will have access to all the presentation slides and the material (texture, 3d models, etc.) used in the laboratory activities. All the documents are available on the elearning website (http://elearning.uniud.it).

In-depth textbooks for specific topics:

* Uldis Zarins, Anatomy For Sculptors: Understanding the Human Figure, ISBN 978-1-7350390-0-8, Anatomy Next, Inc., 2014

* Uldis Zarins, Anatomy of facial expression, ISBN 978-1-7350390-1-5, Anatomy Next, Inc., 2014

* Richard Williams, The Animator’s Survival Kit, ISBN 978-0571238347, Faber & Fabe, 2009