NorsemaN
Bryan High SchoolNovember 2008 Volume 38, Number 2
The
From high school to industry
Norseman staff
As a newly-created department at Texas A&M, the Visualization Sciences De- partment, (Viz Lab), has started attracting more students than ever before and isslowly gaining attention in the animation industry.To obtain admission to the master’s program it is advised that students starttheir undergraduate studies in Environmental Design and submit a portfolioalong with an application for consideration.The Viz Lab is becoming an innovative leader in the study of visualizationsciences.“Everyone in Viz Lab had both technical and artistic abilities in various de-grees, so generally you come in either from the art side or a technical side,” gradu-ate student Ben Sutherland said.Other students agree that the Viz Lab offers a well-rounded education in visualization sciencesfrom both the artistic standpoint as well as the technical aspects of visualization.“This program is a little broad. They emphasize both math and computer science, but generally all of theartists here that are usually nontechnical, can do a certain amount of programming and mathematics, but for thetechnical people here it is very heavy mathematics,” second year grad student Bob Graph said.A&M is one of the only schools that combine both aspects of math and art at such a high level which has lead manyindustry executives to A&M in search of talent.“A&M teaches the concepts and principles of computer graphics,” said Marilyn Friedman, director of outreach andspecial programs for DreamWorks. “A&M students know how to learn new things because they have been given thatkind of mind-set.”The earlier a student can begin to immerse themselves in all things that have to do with visualization the better.Bryan High offers animation classes for juniors and seniors.“We learn a little bit about the twelve principles of animation,” animation teacher Brian Magouirk said. “After they have gonethrough a fairly extensive set of tutorials, theywill go on to a series of individual and group projects.”
Artistic abilities also help when entering a feld
based on drawing and imagination.“We’ve been working really hard on the elementsand principles of art and the students have all beenadding graphic design or 2-D into their artwork,”art teacher Renee Richards said.Even if students are not interested in programmingor artistic endeavours there is still a place for them inthe industry.“For every artist there are several managers runningand producing schedules.” Friedman said. “We alsohave a lot of lawyers and accountants as well as a hugemarketing and human resources department.”
Junior Tyler Clark creates a tree using animation software.
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A&M Viz Department opens doors to industry
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Norseman staff members watch as a graduate student dem-onstrates how she created a sheep using MIA.
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The Norseman staff was honored with theopportunity to meet with Tim McLaugh-lin, Department Head for Visualization Sciences.
How has the area of viz science changedsince 1988 when it started as a pro-gram?
There’stwothings,howhastheeld
changed and how has the program changed.I came in 1991 and I was in the third classthat entered here and we didn’t know re-
allywhatweweredoingandwhattheeld
was all about, we’re doing a lot of thingsthat had to do with computing and imagerythat weren’t relatedto the entertainmentindustry and withintwo to three yearsafter that a number of movies came out,
Jurassic Park
be-ing one in 1993,
ToyStory
in ‘96, and both of them com-municated to audi-ences things thatwere really exciting.So
Jurassic Park
had photo-real digi-tal dinosaurs and allthe studios said “wecan do all of thesemovies now thatwere really hard todo without comput-er-generated charac-ters” and
Toy Story
came along and people recognizedthat fully computer-generated moviescan work and can beentertaining, people will pay to see it, andthose things transformed the industrieswhich then transformed this program inthat the industry started saying “we needmore people, we need more artists, weneed more technologists” and the studentscoming into this program said “we wantto go do that stuff” and they became veryfocused on that area.We’re still a broad program, we still
supportnearts,wesupportwebdesign,
we support photography, we support pureresearch into computer graphics, but mostof the students-not all-but most of the stu-dents come in with the focus of going toHollywood.
What’s the time commitment that ittakes to obtain your masters in visual-ization?
Master of Science is a 48 credit hour program, which includes thesis work. Itcould be done-can be done-in two com- plete years, but typically takes students
about3yearstobedone.Theywillnish
their course work in about 2 years and thendo primarily research for a written thesisthat is required.
In an article done by TheForce.netwhile you were working on Star Wars:Episode One, you made the commentthat the Viz Program was not a train-ing ground for animators, but a trainingground for Technical Directors. Is thatstill the case?
Yes, the term animation can be used ina variety of ways; one is to say animationas it pertains to everything you see on thescreen when you’re looking at a videogame or a DreamWorks or Pixar movie.Another way to look at it is that anima-
tionisaspecicjob,withinputtingthat
on, and I tend to think of it that way, ani-mation is creating acting and performancewithin a digital character. And so an ani-mator is really an actor, but they’re using atool; an animator is a puppeteer. Our pro-gram has animation as a component in thatyou will be tasked with doing animation
projectswithinthescopeofotherprojects
but we don’t teach, or concentrate on per-formance.Programs that concentrate on anima-tion in performance require lots of act-ing classes, lots of hand-drawn classes,multiple classes dealing with timing, andemotion and expression. And
thosearejustsmallercompo
-nents of what we do. Techni-cal directing requires more of the fundamentals of computer graphics, and light and ma-terials and modeling. Thingslike that.
You mentioned in anotherarticle that there is a needfor students in forensics andclimatology, and those are
two interesting elds that
people might not immedi-ately associate with visual-ization. Could you explain alittle bit more-especially on
those two elds-how visu
-alization principals wouldapply?
We use the term visu-alization to mean the visualcommunication of informa-tion and I use forensics to de-scribe that to think of thingssuch as if an oil company isrecognizing through other sorts of datathat there are oil deposits underneath theGulf of Mexico, they need to communi-cate where those oil deposits are you cando that through numbers, you can do thatthrough 2-D maps, you can also do thatthrough viz. We have students that work for companies that do that.I visited this weekend with a former stu-dent- that works with a company calledPresagis named Cody Starr and what theymake there are software tools for peoplewho create simulations for the military. So pilot displays, things like the exact terrainand make-up of an air force base so that pilots can do simulated landings and take-offs and they require a much higher levelof precision in terms of their engineeringof these programs than what is required for the entertainment industry. There’s a lot of opportunities out there that our students
arejustaswellpreparedforastheenter
-tainment industry.
Bryan High does offer an animation class,along with some other computer program-ming classes. How much of an advantagedoes high school programs give studentspursuing a masters degree?
I don’t know yet. I am more curiousabout the effect on the graduate programthan I am of the ability to get into the un-dergraduate program. Right now, entranceto the bachelor of the environmental designand visual studies option is the same thatit is for any other program in that you areadmitted to the university based upon your GPA and your standardized test scores.This program requires visual aptitudeand there is not a test for visual aptitude.The fact that it also requires engineeringand math and computer programming somy expectation is that students coming outof the Bryan high programs and anima-tion programming will be better preparedto do well in those courses meaning theyare better prepared to get entrance into the
programitjustmeanstheywillbebetter
prepared to do well once they are here.
Is it necessary to have an undergraduatedegree in architecture or engineering todo well in the program? We have seencomments made about students partici-pating with degrees in anything fromphysiology to English, but according tothe application process on the web site,students must have an undergrad de-
gree in an applicable eld of study.
No, and basically to enter the programyou need a portfolio and if you’re takingclasses that help you produce work to gointo a portfolio then that’s great. And some
majorsaremorefriendlytothatandyoudothingsinyourclassesinthosemajors
that help create a portfolio, but you could
beaFrenchmajor-foreignlanguagema
-
jor-andstilldothingsthatarevisuallycre
-ative, and as long as you can show thosethings that’s great. There are also math re-
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The Norseman staff meets with Tim McLaughlin about the study of Visualiza-tion Sciences at Texas A&M University.
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quirements, so calculus and linear algebra,so if your undergrad major is putting youthrough those classes then you’re in better shape.
How much math is required, do thecomputers do some of that, or do thestudents do it?
A&M graduates are very well preparedon the fundamentals of computer graphics,which means that we don’t allow the toolsto do a lot for us, we have to understandwhat the tools are doing. Maya, which isa popular animation package, has goodshading and also has good dynamics. Inour classes we concentrate on writing our own shading programs, writing our ownrenderers and dynamics.The fact that Maya does them for us,means great, the next time that Maya isnot doing exactly what I need it to do, Ican make adjustments or I can make myown shading or lighting effects. And that’show our students are equipped to be good problem solvers. That’s where the math re-ally comes in.
How did the transformation from aprogram under the architecture depart-ment to its own department occur?
It occurred because primarily it was led by our former dean, Tom Reagan, and he
recognized the signicance of the visual
-ization program and looked after its healthand thought that it would have more of anopportunity to grow and expand and be-come something beyond what it is rightnow, if it is its own department.There was a faculty led group that es-tablished what the department would beabout, what the components would be,and the college looked at that and ap- proved it. Then the university approvedit and the state looked at it and approvedit. What it does is give the visualizationgroup the faculty and staff involved in the program the opportunity to really think interms of how to use resources and whatare the highest priorities independently of what the department of architecture wantswhich I think is healthy for the departmentof architecture.
In general what do you think the num-ber 1 misconception about visualizationsciences is?
The thing we deal with often is anima-tion and the term animation applies to the
whole eld. So students will walk in here
and say “I’m here to be an animator” andwe hope that’s not been the impressionthat they’ve been given by anything we’re putting out there.Being a digital artist can be accom-
plished without having signicant math
and technology skills. The tools are there,most of them that are off-the-shelf soft-ware, are there so that anybody can pick them up and work their way through. Whatwe do is try to not teach the tool, but teachwhat can be done beyond what the tool
offers. Some students struggle with that.
They want to be able to use what the soft-ware offers and be able to produce greatwork; and they can. To that we say “greatthat’s very nice. Now let’s break the tool or move the tool beyond or think outside of that and do something different” a studentmay counter and say “I won’t be asked todo that when I’m out in industry” And I’ll
say “well you’re right the rst year and the
second year, but by year 3 or 4 the toolswill change, your role will change and youwill be required to do something beyond
what this tool can do.” So we don’t want
to prepare students to get a job. We wantto get them prepared so that 5 years fromnow, the value of their education reallycomes to light.
If you could lay out the ideal plan for astudent who knows in high school thatthey want to pursue a career in anima-tion, how do you recommend they goabout that, beginning in high school?
It should be multiple factors. A key in-gredient is to use your eyes, watch what’sgoing on, be curious about what you seein the real world. What is that marble out
there doing? Why is it reecting that way?
Can I represent that? Can I make some-thing that does that? Why does the squir-rel move the way the squirrel moves whenhe’s trying to burry an acorn in tall grass.And really use your eye to seerather than to know.There’s a common ex-ercise in art class it’s drawingwhat you see rather than whatyou know. If I were a naïveartist and was asked to drawyour face I would approach it by drawing a shape and then putting some eyes than a noseand a mouth. Most naïve art-ists draw the face as takingup a much larger percentageof the size of the head thenit does in reality. And whatthey are doing is what theyknow. There are eyes and anose and a mouth inside thiscircle. What we do is turn the page around and draw upsidedown. Now you have to drawthis image upside down andthat forces them to look at theexact curvature of the upper eye lid relative to the space between that eyelid and the bridge of thenose and it becomes shapes rather than ob- jects that they already have an idea of.The same thing goes with visualization.Rather you’re representing data or you’rerepresenting an image of the world or you’re representing something fantasticalthat you thought of in your head. You haveto be able to see it as component parts andknow what those component parts contrib-ute to the overall image before you can putit together in a way where everyone elsecan see what you see. Now that’s a big broad picture of whatdoes that mean, why do you have to knowmath, because you have to know how to break those components parts down intofundamental aspects that are driven bymathematical principles you have to knowartistry.You have to know what colors work welltogether. What lines curved vs. straightwork well together. Composition withinframework how much of the mass can beon one side or the other. You have to knowtools: how do you use the video camera to
create the right depth of elds so that the
picture that you want the audience to see pops out of the background. How do youdo that in the course of high school educa-tion?
We noticed that when people are men-tioned on the credits of movies, they areusually in a specialized category likemuscle and fabrics, do most students
choose a specifc area to study?
They need to, typically, because mostof the companies hire specialists and theywant somebody who is really interested in pursuing character rigging or really inter-ested in pursuing writing or really inter-ested in pursuing modeling and the thesisoffers a long period of time devoted to one particular subject. It’s possible to go towork as a generalist and then move intoa particular subcategory and it’s very pos-sible to go to work in one area and later
move to another to nd your interest.
Is there ever going to be a time whereyou run out of ideas? Is there going tobe a time when nothing is new?
I think individuals constantly run out of ideas, I think the world doesn’t. There arewriters, directors, authors who stop havingnew ideas and if you follow their line of work, you’ll see that happen.
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Volume 38 Number 2
Published on November 30, 2008 by the Bryan High School Norseman in Bryan, Texas. To zoom in or magnify, please use the toolbar at the bottom of the viewing window
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