Course Description
Techniques to manipulate digital imagery to
generate beautiful effects for movies and television have revolutionized the
film industry. Developers and artists using a computer as a digital
manipulation tool can now generate special effects to tell stories on projects
of various scales, ranging from very high budget films to low-budget independent
films to television movies to movie shorts from home video collections.
The Digital Video Special Effects class
(CS4480) offered this spring quarter is aimed at teaching the techniques that
are used to generate video special effects. This course is designed to allow
students to explore their creativity while extending their graphics and
programming skills. In this class we will undertake a detailed exploration
of the world of digital media as it applies to the generation of digital special
effects. Topics covered in this class include, digital representations of
audio and video, spatial and temporal aspects of video, digital compositing and
blending, merging graphics and raw video, and merging & morphing of
digital streams. Participants in class will be required to generate
special effects, critique and analyze effects from movies, develop skills and
abilities to manipulate digital video and audio, and implement their own
algorithms to express their technical and artistic skills.
Using off-the-shelf software for video
manipulation, combined with your own algorithms implemented for the class,
general ingenuity, and artistic skills, students will generate "video
shorts" that will show off their zany ideas in all their 32-bit
glory.
Topics
 | Introduction to New Paradigms |
| Representations of Digital Media |
| Computing Methodologies |
| Image Effects |
| Video Effects |
| Audio Effects |
| Spatial Techniques |
| Temporal Techniques |
|
| Into the Picture |
| Merging Graphics with Video |
| Blending Multiple Streams |
| Video and Image Compositing |
| Morphing |
| Putting it together |
| 3D |
| Case Studies |
|
Prerequisites
Grading
| Description |
What |
% |
Total of the Grade |
| Problem Sets. |
#1: Compositing |
15% |
30% |
| #2: Matched Moves |
15% |
| Critiques |
#1: |
10% |
20% |
| #2: |
10% |
| Final Project |
0: Proposal |
6% |
46% |
| 1: Mid Term Report |
6% |
| 2: Weekly Updates (4) |
12% |
| 3: Final Presentation |
16% |
| 4: Final Report |
6% |
| Class Participation/Attendance |
|
4% |
4% |
| |
|
|
100% |
Projects
| In groups of 3 (or 4). |
| Each member of the group should bring special expertise and contribution
to the project. |
| Group members need to be approved by Instructor (and TA). |
| Students can form (propose) their own groups. Submit an
application to the instructor, stating each group member's expertise and
tasks within a project. |
| If groups are not formed by students, then the Instructor/TA will help
with the assigning of members to groups. |
| Groups have to be finalized by 1/31/2001.
|
| A project proposal is needed (6%) on 2/14/01.
|
| Mid Term project shows static effects and story-board (6%)
on 3/12/01 |
| Final Project shown for internal Jury (8%)
on 4/10/01 |
| Final Project shown for external Jury (8%)
on 4/25/01 |
| Final Report (including details of individual contributions) (6%)
by Final Exam Slot. |
