AET Courses Fall 2020

Faculty: Honoria Starbuck

Link to your future with a LinkedIn profile. View your skills through the eyes of an employer as you create a professional resume. Build a portfolio strategy for success by learning how to present your best work in the best ways to connect to your best future.

Faculty: David (D.S.) Cohen

Team collaboration, vision, and creation will be the focus of this project based course as we examine the intersection of arts and technology. Through a creative lens we will explore ways to conceive, develop, and execute new experiences and creations through the integration of interactive systems, music and sound, visualization, projection, digital games, lighting, spatial design, physical computing, immersion, narrative design and much more. As we go through this journey we will also consider the cultural, philosophical, ethical and practical aspects of entertainment technology.

Faculty: TBD

Learn the basic concepts behind digital audio and recording! This course will cover foundational material for dealing with audio recording, editing, sequencing, and mixing inside a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). The primary objective of this course is to provide a functional understanding of digital audio systems and recording techniques that can be utilized in various fields including, but not limited to: audio production, film scoring, game music, and sound design.

Faculty: Neal Daugherty

By utilizing contemporary computer graphic software, digital capture and imaging devices, and a digital vocabulary of the artistic use of technology within our culture, this course’s objective is to enable the student to make educated technological and conceptual decisions on how to explore and utilize the computer and digital technology within their own creative and technical career all focused by conceptual aesthetic development. This course will develop concepts and skills by addressing assigned conceptual problems. These problems or “project modules” will help the student creatively consider the interaction of media, imagery, composition, content, and digital manipulation methods.

Faculty: Tyler Coleman

Learn how to make beautiful art using only code and a sprinkle of imagination. Algorithmic art, screensavers, games, music visualizers, and more!

Faculty: Honoria Starbuck

An introduction to design process, user experience, and formal design principles. Students will learn about design thinking, including problem solving, working within constraints, User Centered Design, Usability Testing, and User Experience for apps and interactive systems. Additionally, the course will cover the formal aspects of design such as composition, spatial arrangement, ergonomics, affordance, and the relationship between form and function through hands-on projects.

Faculty: Matt Smith

Hybrid lecture/lab course designed to introduce students to the basic concepts, methods, and systems utilized in the field of Live Entertainment. Primary focus is to explore technologies and illuminate how each area of work within Projection, Lighting and Interactivity (PLAI) relates and is connected to others. Students will be introduced to projection, conventional and automated lighting, 3D previsualization and interactive and generative imagery. Topics include historical landmarks of interactive performance, projection system design, media servers, common signal and data formats, imagery creation for live performance, and current trends in live event technology.

Faculty: David (D.S.) Cohen

An introduction to the process of creating games from concept through publishing. Professional industry standard techniques will be used to design, develop, produce, and publish playable games. Topics covered include game design and development, prototyping, art direction, aesthetics, technology, production planning, development pipelines, project management, product publishing, community management, and documentation.

Faculty: Chris Ozley

This course presents programming methods for MIDI and audio signal processing in the powerful music and audio, visual interface language Max/MSP — no programming experience required! Students will learn how to manage audio signal flow and communications with external devices such as keyboard controllers, pedals and other sensors. The course will cover the creation of systems for musical interactivity in live performance and immersive sound installation applications and will cover integration with Ableton Live — no experience in Ableton required!

Faculty: Carolina Perez

Design the sonic landscape of a play from concept to execution. Critically analyze scripts for the theatre. Understand the functions and qualities of sound and music that support storytelling. Record your own sounds and customize existing recordings. Arrange sound cues sequentially within a cueing software application. Utilize sound effects, music underscores and voiceovers to communicate conceptually and emotionally with an audience.

Faculty: Chris Ozley

Explores the techniques of modern electronic dance music (EDM) improvisation through the use of the Ableton Push 2 Controller as a live, performable instrument. The aim of the course is to explore the improvisational and interactive aspects of modern electronic music while studying work of visionaries of the EDM world. Students will learn the principles of sequencing beats and playing drums, the principles of drum variations, sequential melodies live audio recording, routing, sidechaining, warping and will demonstrate the principles of live EDM performance. 

Faculty: Lucas Dimick

Animation can bring characters, objects, and graphics to life. It’s the backbone of the computer graphics industry and plays an important role in film, visual effects, games, and motion graphics. This course is an introduction to the principles of animation for 2D and 3D systems. Students will use various techniques to convey a sense of weight, emotion, and story for simple and complex objects in both 2D and 3D.

Faculty: Neal Daugherty

This course will expand on student’s existing conceptual skills and further develop them to produce a clear and well-conceived visual vocabulary of artistic style, character development, environment design, and presentation strategies. The ultimate goals of this course is to prepare the student with the fundamentals of conceptual artistic style and applying it to the techniques of concept art. These new skills and concepts will empower the student so that they may be able to network with programmers, producers, and other artists. The student will be graded on their individual personal development. Individual and group instruction will address needs for proper presentation to the class and prospective collaborations.

Faculty: Neal Daugherty

Intro to 2D animation is designed to provide basic animation foundations and targeted instruction for artists wanting to expand their research into advanced or specific types of 2D Digital Art techniques and process. This course is designed as an introduction to intermediate course offering. Utilizing the student’s existing digital and traditional skill sets, the course will examine the technical and conceptual aspects of 2D digital art, animation with 2D pen and pencil drawings, video/film documentation and presentation. Advanced topics include the use Photoshop, Painter, Audition, and After Effects for animation, sound editing, and scripting of storyboards.This course will expand the student’s existing digital skills and further develop them to produce a clear and well-conceived understanding of digital production processes and a learned vocabulary of animation and its respective nomenclature.

Faculty: Kyle Chittenden

In this course, students will learn the process of creating gameplay animations, techniques to improve their animation workflow, and how to implement their animations into Unreal Engine. Animation is a very important step in the art pipeline, and the class will focus on creating a multitude of game ready animations, along with how to work with blendspaces, state machines, and other systems used by animators in the industry today.

Faculty: Bill Byrne

Extended exploration into motion graphics, compositing, and visual effects of games and previsualization.

Faculty: MJ Johns

Video Game Prototyping is an exploration of rapid prototyping techniques for game development using ideation, storyboarding, pitching, prototyping, testing, and documentation. This course is repeatable and may be taken more than once for credit. Throughout this course, students will work on project teams to create quick game prototypes in 2-3 week cycles and will have a chance to practice the skills they have learned in previous courses while also exploring and developing new skills. Prerequisites: Foundations of Game Development (AET 318) and Foundations of Creative Coding (AET 310)

Faculty: MJ Johns

In this course, students create a functional and aesthetically pleasing level using an industry standard game engine (Unity or Unreal). Students create an individual level to practice all skills, and also a team level to practice working in a small group. Topics covered include sketching/planning, white boxing, integrating art and sound assets, scripting simple interactions, adding particles and animation for juice, and playtesting and recording feedback. Prerequisite: AET 310 Creative Coding (or equivalent) and AET 318 Foundations of Games

Faculty: Tyler Coleman

Discover how games do the things they do through this intro to game scripting. Learn how to program games using C# with Unity 3D, one of the game industry standards. Topics include character movement, environmental systems, AI, procedural generation, UI, and more.

Faculty: MJ Johns

User Interface/User Experience for Games is a course that focuses on UI/UX techniques in game development including flow diagrams, wireframes, user-centered design, usability testing, UI art asset creation, and UI scripting. During this course, students will design and develop a complete User Interface for a game with particular focus on how the user interacts and engages with it. This course will also cover topics on physical interfaces and accessibility. Prerequisites: Foundations of Game Development (AET 318) and Foundations of Creative Coding (AET 310)

Faculty: Deepak Chetty

Virtual Production and real-time rendering are here. Learn how to plan, layout, light, animate and render your ideas, concepts and art in real-time using Unreal Engine. Physically accurate cameras will simulate their real-world counterparts and give you the ability to learn and develop your real-world skills in a virtual environment or integrate your real-world skills into the virtual production environment. Final projects, which will be fully realized short-form pieces, will display an understanding of the methodology and creative potential of this game-changing workflow. 

Faculty: Sam Lipman

Composing music for films, games and TV in the digital audio workstation (DAW).

Faculty: Michael Baker

A special projects course for juniors and seniors which integrates design process and creative technologies to develop unique presentations and experiences. Projects change every semester and may be driven by university research, community challenges, design competitions, or industry partnerships.

ROBOTS FOR LIVE PERFORMANCE

Faculty: J. E. Johnson and Karen Maness

This course is for artists, engineers, designers, and anyone who wants to build human-scale robots for live performance. Students will learn hands-on mechanism design, automation control, surface finish techniques, and effective project collaboration. This course experience will build portfolios, resumes, and leadership skills for career paths in design, architecture, live entertainment, film, gaming, and engineering.

Faculty: Honoria Starbuck

Technology and Pedagogy offers a holistic focus on the creative learner and inclusive designer. Students will develop understanding of instructional design in new media and technology. Learners in this class will design learning experiences with engaging activities, such as gamification, to emphasize communication and critical thinking skills. Students will apply learning theory and practices to create portfolio-ready instructional materials for use in industry or academics.

Faculty: Sam Lipman

The producer's guide to harmony, chord progressions, and song structure in the MIDI grid.

Faculty: Tyler Coleman

Learn how game mods are created by getting hands-on experience in mod development. Work with teams of fellow students in creating a mod for a popular game title. This class will help prepare you for working in a real game's tools and pipeline, providing first hand experience with software used in the industry.

Faculty: Matt Smith

Hybrid lecture/lab course focusing on the design and integration of playback and control systems commonly utilized in live entertainment environments. Students will have hands on training with equipment from High End Systems, as well as a variety of projection playback software and hardware. This course will take part in a cross-curriculum end of semester live event. Live Event Engineering combines lighting programming techniques, technical research, and design process. Students will learn how to setup and network a variety of live show control software/hardware. By placing system components in conversation with design practices, we will be able to design and adapt for a variety of performances.

Faculty: Kyle Evans

Activate your art! In this project-focused course, students will learn to interface code with the physical world through sensors, lights, motors, and more. Want to add color changing lights to your next project? Want to make a sound-activated laser? Want to add motion-activation to a blender? Let’s bring your art to life!

Faculty: Yuliya Lanina & Chris Ozley

This experience is meant to build on your acquired knowledge and skills to facilitate the creation of a collaborative team project that would serve as a calling card to future employers or graduate schools. Students will work on a project in teams of 3-4 people, bringing the skills they have acquired in previous years. Each team proposes their project in writing. Once the project is approved, the team is responsible for the concept, technical drawings/prototypes, design, testing, implementation and presentation of their project online, showcasing their research, development, documentation and outcomes of their project. The semester will culminate with presentations of each project for faculty and potentially professionals from outside the university. Prerequisites: Completion of all core AET coursework