Instructional Standards for Maya, 3dsMax and Softimage
I’ve argued in these posts for the development and implementation of explicit standards for animation education and training. I firmly believe that core competency standards will make life much easier for institutions and instructors. They provide clarity and accountability whether they are used in traditional forms of training or supporting a wide range of non-tradition, non-linear and informal learning processes.
While there is no universal system of content standards (yet), there are examples of standards for software skills (CISCO paved the way many years ago). Software companies are concerned about how their products are taught and in particular the learning principles and instructional abilities that teachers and trainers should possess to be effective in the “classroom”.
Standardized core competencies provide an explicit benchmark defining the content and level of expertise that should be evident throughout an educational or training regimen. They not only provide a framework for developing curriculum and courseware but also guide the instructor when he or she is planning, organizing and presenting the content of individual lessons and tasks.
Software companies (and everyone else come to think of it!) expect instructors to be effective and competent teachers rather than simply masters of the functionality of their products. Not every excellent animator (or vfx specialist) makes a good teacher - that takes a separate and well-developed set of additional abilities and talents. We have all been the recipients of substandard instructional practice and poor teacher performance at some time during our lives and it’s an incredibly frustrating, unproductive experience and a terrible waste of time, money and effort.
Autodesk Inc. has made considerable progress in improve this situation and their accomplishments are an important milestone in standards development and implementation for the animation and vfx industries. Last year, under the supervision and direction of Michael Sehgal, Senior Manager, Education and Training Programs at Autodesk, a group of experts developed a new set of Autodesk’s Media and Entertainment Instructional Standards (MEIS) for three software products; Maya, 3dsMax and Softimage.
These standards were designed to provide a comprehensive reference for those applying for Autodesk Certified Instructor qualification, but they are also an excellent source of high quality instructional content for all those designing curricula or teaching these applications at any level. The MEIS documents specify the content that certification candidates should know before applying to the ACI program and attending the ACI Workshop. I think every instructor will find them extremely useful.
The MEI Standards consist of 13 modules:
1. Animation
2. Cameras
3. Compositing
4. Dynamics / Simulation
5. Effects
6. Lighting
7. Materials / Shading
8. Modeling
9. Rendering
10. Rigging / Setup
11. Scene Assembly / Pipeline Integration
12. Scripting
13. UI / Scene Management1. Animation
Each module consists of four parts:
THEORY: provides conceptual or theoretical background information and reference suggestions for the topic.
APPLIED: provides practical information about how the software is used in terms of technique and workflow.
ACTIVITY: provides recommended activities and exercises that can be used by the instructor
TOOLS: covers the software toolset for each topic area.
I was hired to research, write and contribute to the Theory, Applied and Activity sections of the standards documents and I found the process a rewarding challenge and an opportunity to revisit standards development and rethink new ways to explore the theories, principles and activities that form the foundations of software functionality.
If you are an instructor or a trainer in Maya, 3dsMax or Softimage, I highly recommend the MEIS standards to you. Reviewing and rebuilding your resource base is a great way to continually improve your instruction and widen the range of information and skills you bring to your students.
You can access the Autodesk Professional Excellence Program documents and download a .pdf of the MEIS Standards for Maya, 3dsMax and Softimage at
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=12544852
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Hi Sandy,
Many thanks for your comments. Of course there are excellent programs out there but in many there is a serious problem that's very common. While a great deal of attention is paid to the sequencing and vertical organization of programs and courses, I find all to often that, after a short time, these become ineffective to a large degree. Why? Because there is a serious lack of horizontal integration; faculty organizing. planning and carrying out their courses and assignments without careful coordination with others teaching the same students.
This often results is unnecessary duplication, uneven course loads, poor learning experiences and inadequate results at graduation. It's a common problem I find in formal institutions where faculty can exist comfortably without close cooperation with their peers. In a positive and creative atmosphere this doesn't happen.
One of the most positive aspects of implementing explicit standards is to ensure that these things don't happen and that teaching and learning is an accountable process at every level. It's not rocket science!! It just means that adequate time be devoted to program design and that everyone participates as equal partners is it's implementation.
Well designed production pipelines are a good model for organizational structure when it comes to training. Clear interdependencies are essential at every level.
Robin
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Hi Robin,
I find this article very interesting and thought provoking. Having gone through a 3D Animation program here in Vancouver, BC a few years ago I do have some thoughts on the issue of educational standards.
I come from an operations management background but have always loved art and 3D in particular. Once enrolled in the 3D progam at BCIT I was shocked at the lack of standards in individual classes but also the lack of standards as a whole. The group of students I was with had two seperate Softimage and Maya instructors and the there was no cohesion between the two instructors for each software package at all. For example one instructor would be teaching uv mapping and texturing in Maya while the other as teaching rigging. and the next week the topics would completely switch.
I must say one of our Maya instructors was exceptional and ultimatley left the school to teach elswhere and one of our SOftimage instructors was exceptional where the other seemed to have only basic knowledge.
These are just some very small examples of many many problems we ran into as students. With some sort of standards I feel these issue would have been much less prevelant.
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