The Educators Program might not be as glamorous as some of the other venues at the SIGGRAPH Conference, but it’s a great source of information for educators and students.

According to the SIGGRAPH 2007 website, the Educators Program includes “Sessions and sharing that augment the quality of curricula, improve student learning, and inspire others to adopt the life-long pursuit of advancing education, technology, and culture. Educators Program offerings are formal (papers, panels, workshops, QuickTakes, and forums) and informal opportunities to reinforce the teaching-learning community's inspiration and commitment.”

This year’s Educators Program Chair, Janese Swason, has a PhD in Education and is currently teaching K-6 in the San Diego area, where she has 800 students and trains 40 teachers. She has done research in gender similarities and differences in technology use and created “Girl Tech” a brand of electronic toys for girls.

Janese Swason, SIGGRAPH 2007 Educators Program Chair

Janese is interested in getting more K-12 teachers involved with SIGGRAPH and conducted an outreach program to introduce the conference to San Diego County teachers. Part of this outreach involved the “Wheels on the Bus” project. This project, on exhibit at the convention center, includes digital and video work created by 500 K-6 students. Usually children under the age of 16 are not allowed to attend the conference, but this year Janese invited several San Diego children and parents to tour the conference on Tuesday morning. This allowed the students to see the “Wheels on the Bus” project, as well as some of the conference venues.

Photos of “Wheels on the Bus”

The Educators Program is a 2 day event which consists of papers, panels, workshops, QuickTakes, and forums that were chosen by a jury from over 200 submissions. The presentations were submitted by students, professors and professionals. Most of the attendees of the program are college professors, but many of the presentations would benefit students and professionals as well.

Presentations included subjects like “Rethinking Graphics and Gaming Courses Because of Fast Ray Tracing”, “Critters in the Classroom: A 3D Computer-Game-Like Tool for Teaching Programming to Computer Animation Students” and “An Interactive Interface: Animated Sign Language, Self-Learning With Fun”.

I sat in on a few of sessions, including “Enhance Science Learning With Art Assignments”, “Studio Views of Demo Reels” and “openPipeline: Teaching Animation Production Pipelines in the Arts Context".

“Enhance Science Learning With Art Assignments” was an Educators paper discussing research on using art assignments in science classes. They showed work from computer art students who were asked to visually interpret lectures from their science class on the Big Bang Theory, Nuclear Energy and Ocean Thermo Dynamics. They compared the results of creating sketches and visual representations of concepts, versus writing, and the effectiveness of each on student learning.

“Studio Views of Demo Reels” was an informative presentation about what studios look for when viewing reels. The panel included Art Durinski from Otis College of Art and Design, Glenn Campbell from Area 51 and Valerie Lettera-Spletzer from Dreamworks Animation. Valerie showed her demo reel, and explained why each piece was included on the reel. She talked about putting titles on screen which state the role you played in a shot. If you worked in a group and only did the modeling, you should say this when the shot is shown on your reel. According to Valerie, if you include this information on the reel as well as on a shot list, the viewer doesn’t have to keep referring to the shot list while watching the reel. This will help keep them focused on your work.

Art Durinski, Valerie Lettera-Spletzer, Glenn Campbell

Glenn Campbell from Area 51 was a little more harsh about the reality of job hunting. He showed a “reel from hell” which included examples of all the mistakes and clichés he’s seen in reels over the years. Glenn talked about the 5 core jobs in computer animation and visual effects, which include modeling, texturing, lighting, animating and compositing. At a large studio you will probably get hired to do one of these things, but at a smaller studio like Area 51 you will need to be good at 3 out of 5 these areas to be considered for a staff position.

Glenn showed a sample demo reel he put together to explain what he looks for in a reel. Since Area 51 concentrates on visual effects work for film, he wants to see reels that show that the artist knows how to seamlessly integrate elements into a shot. The reel he showed included still background plates with animated 3D elements. These shots weren’t very complicated, but they were effective in showing an understanding of modeling, animation, lighting and compositing. They were shots any graduate from a good computer animation program should be able to create. He also talked about what each shot showed and why it would interest him.

Studio Views of Demo Reels was a wonderful and informative presentation for those who are about to enter into the job market, or who have had no responses from reels they’ve sent out. It was also a great way for professors to keep up to date on the kinds of advice they should give students about creating reels.

“openPipeline: Teaching Animation Production Pipelines in the Art Context”, presented by Rob O’Neill, from Pratt Institute Digital Research Lab, discussed an open-source production pipeline framework intended for use on independent animation projects and student films.

Rob O’Neill, Pratt Institute Digital Research Lab

openPipeline was originally conceived when Rob O’Neill was working at Eyebeam in NYC and has been developed further at Pratt Institute Digital Research lab. It is an open-source, community developed framework and toolset for animation production. It has been released under creative commons licensing and users are encouraged to make changes to it and give back to the community. It was designed to help track the flow of data through the stages of production.

The original idea of openPipeline was to create an interface in Maya that represents the project and makes it easier to track assets. This includes:

· Automatic file naming and directory structure

· Revision control

· Modular workflow based on asset publishing

· XML based project definition object nodes and description files for external access

· Scene population

· Entirely MEL script based

· Easy network installation

· Easy enough for one person or robust enough for a mid size studio

At this time openPipeline has been adapted more by industry (non-academic) than by students. Several studios are using the tool and adding to it in order to make it more robust. Eventually Rob would like to develop a stand-alone, cross platform version of the asset manager.

openPipeline is available for download at http://openpipeline.sourceforge.net. If you are a student, professor, independent animator or small studio, openPipeline may help you streamline the production process.