Classroom
Animate This
When we walk out of a great computer-animated movie, like Finding Nemo or Toy Story, it's hard to appreciate all of the elements that go into such a complicated, beautiful work. We may be awed by the sweeping animation and the thrilling twists of the plot, but we don't often stop to consider that even the most lavish and complex animated film starts out only as a script. And before that, as just an idea in someone's head.
In a small computer lab on the sixth floor of the Humanities Building, creative students try to navigate that path by taking Art 440: Introduction to 3-D Modeling and Animation, one of the most popular and inventive courses on campus. The class helps students turn their mental images into computer-animated features — but the road between mind's eye and viewer's eye isn't always an easy one.
Students who take the course must complete two animation projects — one of fifteen seconds and one of thirty seconds. Every second requires hours in front of a computer screen, creating and morphing images with painstaking care. Normally, students devote twenty-five to thirty hours to their projects each week. The lab is open to them around the clock, and that's exactly when you'll find them there — at all hours. All of this effort results in a paltry three credits.
In a small computer lab on the sixth floor of the Humanities Building, creative students try to navigate that path by taking Art 440: Introduction to 3-D Modeling and Animation, one of the most popular and inventive courses on campus. The class helps students turn their mental images into computer-animated features — but the road between mind's eye and viewer's eye isn't always an easy one.
Students who take the course must complete two animation projects — one of fifteen seconds and one of thirty seconds. Every second requires hours in front of a computer screen, creating and morphing images with painstaking care. Normally, students devote twenty-five to thirty hours to their projects each week. The lab is open to them around the clock, and that's exactly when you'll find them there — at all hours. All of this effort results in a paltry three credits.
Still, students are lucky for that chance. The course is one of the hardest tickets on campus, with students of art, engineering, computer science, and many other fields vying to get in. George Cramer MFA'70, a professor of art who created the course in 1996, says he tries to stretch enrollment by letting in students who can supply their own equipment, but he still turns away between two hundred and four hundred students every time the course is offered.
The popularity is understandable, given the seemingly endless possibilities of computer animation — and the marketability of such high-tech skills. Cramer claims about a dozen companies a week contact him about hiring students (many of whom earn at least triple their professor's salary, he boasts).
But he adds that the course isn't really about training the next generation of Disney moviemakers. The ethos of his instruction centers on experimentation. He encourages students to envision the impossible — and then try to make it possible.
“It's the hardest way to use a computer,” says Cramer, “but the only way you can get art in four or five dimensions ... and move into the next century.”
An accomplished sculptor and painter, Cramer first put pen to pixel more than a decade ago, when a friend gave his children a then-state-of-the-art (and now kitschy) Commodore computer for Christmas. The kids barely got a chance to enjoy the gift, as Cramer stayed glued to the device for hours, sketching and squiggling away. Soon, he began creating digital prints, which have been exhibited in several countries.
The popularity is understandable, given the seemingly endless possibilities of computer animation — and the marketability of such high-tech skills. Cramer claims about a dozen companies a week contact him about hiring students (many of whom earn at least triple their professor's salary, he boasts).
But he adds that the course isn't really about training the next generation of Disney moviemakers. The ethos of his instruction centers on experimentation. He encourages students to envision the impossible — and then try to make it possible.
“It's the hardest way to use a computer,” says Cramer, “but the only way you can get art in four or five dimensions ... and move into the next century.”
An accomplished sculptor and painter, Cramer first put pen to pixel more than a decade ago, when a friend gave his children a then-state-of-the-art (and now kitschy) Commodore computer for Christmas. The kids barely got a chance to enjoy the gift, as Cramer stayed glued to the device for hours, sketching and squiggling away. Soon, he began creating digital prints, which have been exhibited in several countries.
Cramer, who tends to hang out with computer junkies as much as artists, began teaching computer animation in high-end labs operated by the College of Engineering. Keeping pace with morphing technology, the lab bounced around campus for several years before landing in a “virtual closet” in Cramer's own cramped studio. Now, thanks to a grant from Microsoft, the closet has given way to a more spacious design suite, equipped with several high-end computers and many of the industry-standard software packages for creating animated video and sound.
The stampede to enroll in Cramer's course was particularly strong this summer, Cramer's last semester before retirement. Although the course will likely be picked up by another professor in the future, Cramer has given the class a reputation for bridging art and science, forcing students to marry the mechanical aspects of the medium with its artistic possibilities.
Even at the beginning of the semester, when Cramer spends lecture time explaining software-related terms like “popping” and “pushing,” he steers the conversation toward open-ended, philosophical dialogues about artistic vision. He embraces any excuse to venture off into the abstract. When a student's cell phone rings, he jumps at the opportunity to pontificate: “See how you all looked at where the ring came from? That's what the viewer does in reaction to what you design.”
At the end of the session, Cramer warns students that technology will “modify your dream. You have to tell it what to do.” Each figure, he says, represents a unique mathematical formula.
The stampede to enroll in Cramer's course was particularly strong this summer, Cramer's last semester before retirement. Although the course will likely be picked up by another professor in the future, Cramer has given the class a reputation for bridging art and science, forcing students to marry the mechanical aspects of the medium with its artistic possibilities.
Even at the beginning of the semester, when Cramer spends lecture time explaining software-related terms like “popping” and “pushing,” he steers the conversation toward open-ended, philosophical dialogues about artistic vision. He embraces any excuse to venture off into the abstract. When a student's cell phone rings, he jumps at the opportunity to pontificate: “See how you all looked at where the ring came from? That's what the viewer does in reaction to what you design.”
At the end of the session, Cramer warns students that technology will “modify your dream. You have to tell it what to do.” Each figure, he says, represents a unique mathematical formula.
Although offered by the art department, the course usually attracts a range of students, from hard-core artists to graphic designers to engineers interested in computer visualization. Megan Wiseman x'04, for example, began experimenting with animation software even before enrolling in the course for the summer term. Taking more of a technical angle than some of her peers, she says her first foray into animation came by chance, after overhearing discussion at a lunch table. “I got hooked,” she says.
Unlike some of the artists in the class, who began with character-driven stories in mind, Wiseman saw the animation assignment more structurally, contemplating figures and motions before plot. She used pre-loaded shapes of a man and a car to create a Sisyphean tale — drawn from personal experience — of being stuck in a ditch. In her story, the man struggles to get his car free, only to lodge himself in a ravine across the road.
After finishing that project, she began a new one, just to try a different software package. “It's a gorgeous program,” she says.
While many students follow a similar path, taking time to test the bounds of the medium, Cramer says the story-minded students face a different challenge. They're forced to adapt their ideas to the technology, which often results in some of the most organic, coherent creations.
“Content is the major intent,” he says.
Unlike some of the artists in the class, who began with character-driven stories in mind, Wiseman saw the animation assignment more structurally, contemplating figures and motions before plot. She used pre-loaded shapes of a man and a car to create a Sisyphean tale — drawn from personal experience — of being stuck in a ditch. In her story, the man struggles to get his car free, only to lodge himself in a ravine across the road.
After finishing that project, she began a new one, just to try a different software package. “It's a gorgeous program,” she says.
While many students follow a similar path, taking time to test the bounds of the medium, Cramer says the story-minded students face a different challenge. They're forced to adapt their ideas to the technology, which often results in some of the most organic, coherent creations.
“Content is the major intent,” he says.
— Josh Orton x'04
Editor's note: Shortly before press time, On Wisconsin learned that Kristin Liss, a student in George Cramer's class during the summer semester, passed away unexpectedly. Liss, a thirty-one-year-old returning adult student, was pursuing a second bachelor's degree, majoring in art. Describing her as “one of the best students” with whom he has worked, Cramer says Liss exemplified the type of artist who seeks to express a vision through new media.
“Her potential was extremely high as an artist,” he says. “The future of art is lessened because of this loss.”
Editor's note: Shortly before press time, On Wisconsin learned that Kristin Liss, a student in George Cramer's class during the summer semester, passed away unexpectedly. Liss, a thirty-one-year-old returning adult student, was pursuing a second bachelor's degree, majoring in art. Describing her as “one of the best students” with whom he has worked, Cramer says Liss exemplified the type of artist who seeks to express a vision through new media.
“Her potential was extremely high as an artist,” he says. “The future of art is lessened because of this loss.”
Class Note — Go Nuclear
Nuclear Engineering and Engineering Physics 412: Nuclear Reactor Design
For nearly a half century, this class has been the finishing note for undergraduates in the UW's nuclear engineering program. The independent-study offering requires students to flesh out all the details of a proposed nuclear reactor, which they must design to meet specific needs given to them at the start of the course. “The way the class is run literally hasn't changed in forty-five years,” says Professor Michael Corradini, who leads it these days. What has changed is where the students do their work. After fielding interest from some of the energy companies who employ UW graduates, Corradini set it up so that students could work on their designs under the tutelage of industry professionals at sites around the country. This summer, two students completed the course while working with the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, the nation's leading developer of nuclear reactor technology.
— Michael Penn
For nearly a half century, this class has been the finishing note for undergraduates in the UW's nuclear engineering program. The independent-study offering requires students to flesh out all the details of a proposed nuclear reactor, which they must design to meet specific needs given to them at the start of the course. “The way the class is run literally hasn't changed in forty-five years,” says Professor Michael Corradini, who leads it these days. What has changed is where the students do their work. After fielding interest from some of the energy companies who employ UW graduates, Corradini set it up so that students could work on their designs under the tutelage of industry professionals at sites around the country. This summer, two students completed the course while working with the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, the nation's leading developer of nuclear reactor technology.
— Michael Penn
Extra Credit
Sissel Schroeder's summer anthropology seminar gave students a chance to dig into their subject matter, literally. Schroeder, an assistant professor of anthropology, and ten students spent four weeks digging at a site south of Madison in the town of Dunn, helping to uncover and analyze artifacts that span some eleven thousand years of habitation on the land. First excavated two years ago, the site is already considered one of the most important links to past cultures in the state.
Professors at the School of Music are singing the praises of new technology-driven pianos that are helping students hear music in a new way. The instruments operate somewhat like a player piano, recording live performances onto a computer disk and replaying them exactly as they sounded the first time. Student performers can use the pianos to hear their own music played back to them, allowing them to listen as audience members, rather than performers. The school has purchased five of the pianos, known as Disklaviers: two grands and three uprights.
Starting this fall, UW-Madison will offer an undergraduate academic certificate in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender studies. The fifteen-credit interdisciplinary program combines existing courses that seek to understand the concept, practice, and history of sexuality as an element of social organization. Key issues include sexuality's impact on law, medicine, religion, literature, and numerous other facets of society.
Professors at the School of Music are singing the praises of new technology-driven pianos that are helping students hear music in a new way. The instruments operate somewhat like a player piano, recording live performances onto a computer disk and replaying them exactly as they sounded the first time. Student performers can use the pianos to hear their own music played back to them, allowing them to listen as audience members, rather than performers. The school has purchased five of the pianos, known as Disklaviers: two grands and three uprights.
Starting this fall, UW-Madison will offer an undergraduate academic certificate in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender studies. The fifteen-credit interdisciplinary program combines existing courses that seek to understand the concept, practice, and history of sexuality as an element of social organization. Key issues include sexuality's impact on law, medicine, religion, literature, and numerous other facets of society.
