3 day 3D intro seminar
Hey everyone,
I work at a Private High School doing mainly IT work, however the leadership found that I do a lot of 3D in my spare time and asked if I would present a 3 day basic into into 3D development (for games). I accepted and I will be using Blender.
Since these kids are 14-18, and 3 days (ie, 3 class periods of 50 minutes length) isn't much time at all, I'm a bit at a loss on how to proceed. I know a few of you are professional teachers, and I only do this as a hobby so any advice will be very much appreciated!
For the first day I was thinking of just stunning them with great examples of what 3D can accomplish, like 2012 rendering, Avatar, beautiful game art that is popular with the students (Gears of War, MW2, Halo along with some of my favorites here
), along with some of my art, and briefly giving them a history of computed graphics.
Second day I would have them open up Blender into a completed scene that I've done and talk about basic manipulation and the power of 3D software at a generic level. For example, the mindset of working in 3D that can be applied to all 3D apps, much like teaching "Word processing" while using Microsoft Word -- Don't teach Word, teach the thought process behind word processing .... same thing here. Depending on how fast the class is at learning, I may have them create a basic object like a box and have them apply a pre-made texture I have done and have them render it. It would be cool to move fast enough to do basic animations with the box.
Third day is dependent on how fast the kids learn the previous day. I suppose I could have them make more objects in the basic scene I have and just provide a small library of textures for them to use. I doubt I'd have enough time to teach them UV mapping. This is where I'm in need of the most help.
Any ideas? I think I've thought this through but this is my first 'workshop' and I want it to be great.
I work at a Private High School doing mainly IT work, however the leadership found that I do a lot of 3D in my spare time and asked if I would present a 3 day basic into into 3D development (for games). I accepted and I will be using Blender.
Since these kids are 14-18, and 3 days (ie, 3 class periods of 50 minutes length) isn't much time at all, I'm a bit at a loss on how to proceed. I know a few of you are professional teachers, and I only do this as a hobby so any advice will be very much appreciated!
For the first day I was thinking of just stunning them with great examples of what 3D can accomplish, like 2012 rendering, Avatar, beautiful game art that is popular with the students (Gears of War, MW2, Halo along with some of my favorites here
), along with some of my art, and briefly giving them a history of computed graphics.Second day I would have them open up Blender into a completed scene that I've done and talk about basic manipulation and the power of 3D software at a generic level. For example, the mindset of working in 3D that can be applied to all 3D apps, much like teaching "Word processing" while using Microsoft Word -- Don't teach Word, teach the thought process behind word processing .... same thing here. Depending on how fast the class is at learning, I may have them create a basic object like a box and have them apply a pre-made texture I have done and have them render it. It would be cool to move fast enough to do basic animations with the box.
Third day is dependent on how fast the kids learn the previous day. I suppose I could have them make more objects in the basic scene I have and just provide a small library of textures for them to use. I doubt I'd have enough time to teach them UV mapping. This is where I'm in need of the most help.
Any ideas? I think I've thought this through but this is my first 'workshop' and I want it to be great.
Replies
I think you've got a good idea for the first day. 50 minutes is a good amount of time to do an overview of the process... all the different types of disciplines from art to programming, and pre-production on through production. Having them navigate through 3d space the second day, move some objects around(maybe an unreal level?), make some primitives, show them an animation rig, is all do-able as long as you're not really trying to teach them too much. Treat it more like a game dev primer and simply get them interested in learning more. 3rd day could be less technical and you could get them into groups to brainstorm a game idea/pitch?
http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=70908
Maybe briefly go over the process of making a character start to finish.