Animation and Visual Effects Course

Lesson 1 • History and Evolution of Animation

Traces animation from hand-drawn cells to modern CGI and real-time rendering. Establishes context for every technique introduced later in the course.

Lesson 2 • The 12 Principles of Animation

Covers squash and stretch, anticipation, staging, and all remaining Disney principles. These principles underpin every animation style taught throughout the course.

Lesson 3 • Software Ecosystem and Tool Selection

Surveys industry-standard 2D, 3D, and compositing applications and their use cases. Students select appropriate tools for specific production tasks.

Lesson 1 • Character Rigging in 2D

Introduces bone-based and mesh-deformation rigs for reusable character animation. Rigged characters reduce production time while maintaining expressive motion.

Lesson 2 • Lip Sync and Facial Animation

Covers phoneme shapes, jaw movement, and eye performance for dialogue-driven scenes. Students animate a character delivering a short scripted line.

Lesson 3 • Walk Cycles and Locomotion

Breaks down bipedal and quadrupedal walk cycles using contact, down, pass, and up poses. Mastery of locomotion is essential for character-driven animation projects.

Lesson 4 • Scene Layout and Camera in 2D

Explains parallax scrolling, camera pans, and multi-plane composition for 2D scenes. Proper layout enhances storytelling depth in flat animation.

Lesson 1 • Polygon Modeling Fundamentals

Covers edge loops, face topology, and mesh density for deformable character models. Clean topology is a prerequisite for rigging covered in the next chapter.

Lesson 2 • UV Unwrapping and Texel Density

Explains seam placement, UV island layout, and texel density for consistent texture resolution. Proper UVs are required for the texturing chapter that follows.

Lesson 3 • Environment and Prop Modeling

Applies modeling skills to hard-surface props and modular environment pieces. Students build a small scene set used in later rendering and compositing exercises.

Lesson 4 • Subdivision Surface Modeling

Teaches low-poly cage modeling with subdivision smoothing for production-quality surfaces. Students balance detail and performance across multiple subdivision levels.

Lesson 1 • Skeleton and Joint Placement

Covers joint hierarchy, orientation, and pivot alignment for accurate skeletal motion. Correct joint setup prevents deformation errors in downstream animation.

Lesson 2 • Skinning and Weight Painting

Teaches smooth-bind skinning, weight painting, and corrective blend shapes for clean deformation. Well-painted weights are critical for believable character movement.

Lesson 3 • Forward and Inverse Kinematics

Explains FK and IK chains, pole vectors, and IK-FK blending for animator control. Students set up a full arm and leg IK system on their biped rig.

Lesson 4 • Facial Rigging Systems

Introduces blend-shape-based and joint-driven facial rigs for expressive performance. Facial rigs connect directly to the lip-sync skills developed in Chapter 2.

Lesson 1 • Polishing and Shot Delivery

Addresses final pass refinements, camera framing, and export formats for a deliverable shot. Students submit a complete animation shot meeting professional quality standards.

Lesson 2 • Blocking and Pose-to-Pose Workflow

Establishes strong silhouette poses, timing, and story beats before adding in-betweens. Blocking is the foundation of every professional animation workflow.

Lesson 3 • Acting and Performance Animation

Covers body language, subtext, and emotional arc for character-driven dialogue shots. Strong acting choices elevate technical animation to compelling storytelling.

Lesson 4 • Weight, Overlap, and Follow-Through

Applies secondary motion principles to clothing, hair, and body parts for organic feel. These techniques build directly on the 12 principles from Chapter 1.

Lesson 1 • Subsurface Scattering and Specialized Shaders

Introduces SSS for skin and wax, hair shaders, and glass refraction materials. Specialized shaders are essential for realistic organic and transparent surfaces.

Lesson 2 • Render Settings and Output

Configures sampling, ray depth, and render passes for quality and efficiency. Correct render settings reduce noise while keeping render times manageable.

Lesson 3 • Physically Based Rendering Materials

Explains albedo, roughness, metalness, and normal maps within a PBR workflow. PBR materials ensure consistent results across different lighting environments.

Lesson 4 • Three-Point and HDRI Lighting

Teaches key, fill, and rim light placement alongside HDRI environment lighting. Proper lighting defines mood, depth, and material readability in a scene.

Lesson 1 • Rigid and Soft Body Destruction

Teaches fracture tools, constraint networks, and soft-body dynamics for destruction effects. Destruction simulations require clean geometry from the modeling chapters.

Lesson 2 • Fluid and Smoke Simulations

Introduces voxel-based fluid solvers for smoke, fire, and liquid effects. Students cache and render a fluid simulation for use in a composited shot.

Lesson 3 • Particle Systems and Dynamics

Covers emitter types, force fields, and collision events for fire, smoke, and debris effects. Particle systems are the building blocks of most practical VFX work.

Lesson 4 • Camera Tracking and Match Moving

Covers feature-point tracking, solve quality, and scene reconstruction for CG-to-footage integration. Accurate tracking is the foundation of believable live-action VFX.

Lesson 1 • Motion Graphics and Title Design

Introduces kinetic typography, animated lower thirds, and logo reveals for broadcast deliverables. Motion graphics extend compositing skills into commercial and broadcast contexts.

Lesson 2 • Node-Based Compositing Workflow

Introduces node graphs, merge operations, and layer order for non-destructive compositing. Node-based workflows are the industry standard for complex multi-element shots.

Lesson 3 • Color Grading and Look Development

Covers color space management, LUTs, and grading curves to establish a unified visual look. Consistent color grading ties all elements together into a cohesive image.

Lesson 4 • Final Delivery and Format Standards

Explains codec selection, frame rate standards, and delivery specifications for film, broadcast, and streaming. Students export their final project in multiple delivery formats.