CSE 682 provides a culminating design experience for these students. It requires students to apply the knowledge and skills gained in CSE 541, 560, 581, 601, as well as additional knowledge obtained in the early part of CSE 682 to develop appropriate animations in a team-based, quarter-long design and implementation project. CSE 541 provides essential ideas in numerical techniques. CSE 560 not only develops key technical skills needed in working on large software projects but also soft skills such as team-working and communication; these soft skills are essential for success in many computer animation projects, given their interdisciplinary nature. CSE 601 further develops oral and written communication skills and equips students with an understanding of social, professional and ethical issues. CSE 581 provides the essential foundation in computer graphics including in the use of standard tools such as OpenGL that are used widely in industry. CSE 682 specializes all of this to the problem of animation and introduces additional industry-standard tools such as Maya.
The course is very interdiciplinary in nature. Animation is at its best when techniques of computer graphics are enriched by art. Story telling, character design, scene layout and sensible motion is the value that art adds to a student's animation. In order to foster this interplay, videos of the most successful animations are shown and analyzed and discussed in class. Reflecting the importance of the artistic aspect is the active participation, whenever possible, by faculty and staff from the Advanced Computing Center for Art and Design (ACCAD) in the class discussions. In the most recent offering of the course, for example, tutorials were offered on the use of animation tools by the ACCAD staff, each team in the class had an artist from ACCAD to serve as a ``consultant'', and art faculty helped evaluate each design project for artistic content.
Sample projects in the course include animating children's fables such as the Tortoise and the Hare, a carousel ride becoming a nightmare, and cavorting office staplers. Students are organized into teams of typically five students each. In each case, the objective of project was to produce a short animation, typically between one and two minutes long. The animation is required to include both portions produced algorithmically as well as portions created using standard tools.
Each team was required to maintain a web page with up-to-date progress reports including a written description, sample stills, and sample animations. Team assignments, milestones and task completion times, all as agreed upon by the team, are also required to be listed. Each team is required to make a total of five oral presentations spread out over the quarter; the presentations are devoted respectively to a preliminary proposal for the project, a final proposal, initial progress report, intermediate report, and final report. The demands on the students time and effort is considerable. However by the end of the course, students have gained a comprehensive experience in design and implementation of animations. Consquently, they are well prepared for entering the animation industry and for advanced graduate education.