Animations typically have a polished and time-intensive connotation. However, increases in computing power and program interoperability have begun to bend this notion. This class will focus on the benefits of quick animations—animations that help designers form, shape, understand, and present a design. We will explore the methods that are required to take Autodesk® Revit® software models and move them into Autodesk® 3ds Max® software in ways that allow designers to make active design decisions. We will show quick, functional animation workflows, covering a variety of topics, including solar glare, form, constructability, programming, scheduling, and more through animation. This class hopes to show that designers can effectively study and explain their designs through fast-production animations. We will show start-to-finish methods through case studies.

Animation can be a time-consuming venture that can slow down the production pipeline. You can use a host of procedural animation tools to speed the process and produce flexible and editable animation sequences. This class will help attendees to expand their knowledge of 3ds Max software's animation toolset and procedural animation methods.

Jason Martinsen is an animation industry professional with 18 years of animation experience at companies like Naughty Dog, Sony, Blue Sky, DNEG, Coalition, Moon Studios, and Reel FX. In this session, he will talk about some animation tips and tricks he’s learned throughout the years. He will gear the discussion toward animation professionals and students, and the topics covered will use terminology unfamiliar to non-animators.

Animation can be a time-consuming venture that can slow down the production pipeline. You can use a host of procedural animation tools to speed the process and produce flexible and editable animation sequences. This class will mix methods from Autodesk University 2014 with new methods to help attendees to expand their knowledge of 3ds Max software's animation toolset and procedural animation methods.

Learn how to create construction-sequencing animations in 3ds Max software using data from Revit software and Navisworks software. This class will show you how to prepare data export from Revit and Navisworks to get the best results for lighting, rendering, and animating in 3ds Max software. Learn how to set up the imported data to reflect different types of construction sequences on a timeline, including appearance, movement, and scaling simulations, while also using 3ds Max data for vehicle and crane simulations. See how this software workflow can help you market your construction project to a broader range of stakeholders and win new prestigious projects for your organization.

This class will show how to use 3ds Max software’s animation tools to create exploded view animations for architecture and product design. Complex projects can contain hundreds or thousands of parts and animating these manually can prove daunting. The class will cover a variety of tools and techniques that you can use to manage and automate the animation of large numbers of objects for a variety of applications.

This class covers several techniques for shortening the amount of time needed to produce architectural animations. The class demonstrates the impact of planning during the layout and animatic phase of an animation project and how camera decisions can save time and money.

This class seeks to understand the complexity that is construction sequence animations. We’ll walk through the steps involved in planning out an animation, and discuss which tools are best suited for the job and how to divide the labor. We'll start by understanding what information you need to receive from your client, and we’ll review camera matching drone footage and the workflow from Revit to 3ds Max software. We'll wrap up with compositing in After Effects. Most important is knowing how to manage the process and make sure everyone is working toward the same goal. We'll diagram this process with simple and effective flow diagrams.

This class will look at how we can apply animation techniques to 3D printing—from laying out geometry to hiding support structures to creating interesting new models. Animation can be a great design tool. This session features Print Studio, 3ds Max, and Maya. AIA Approved

Learn how to create smooth and believable camera animation using different techniques, how to create simple camera rigs to have more control over the camera movements, and how to understand the curve editor and camera parameters to modify the timing and movements.

This course will show designers, architects, and engineers how to make better and more-appealing animations for visualization, architecture, and design. Taught by an animation-industry veteran, this fast-moving presentation will take the basic principles of animation and use them to demonstrate ways to make your animations more visually appealing and easier to understand. The course will cover such topics as the importance of design and layout and the importance of storytelling, and we’ll discuss maintaining proper timing and adding weight. We will also cover technical topics such as animation curves, motion paths, and procedural animation, but in a non-software-specific way to make the topics and processes accessible to all. This session features 3ds Max and Maya. AIA Approved

Generating your standard fly-through animation doesn't cut it anymore in the architecture industry. Creating a captivating piece that will excite your client and captivate the audience requires some forethought. In this class we will go through an animation process, highlighting techniques used on a recent project that Tiltpixel was tasked with to sell an idea for a private school in South America. Using 3ds Max software we will go through setting up complex scenes, touching on lighting, rendering, and post producing.

Inventor software is a great tool for building complex mechanical assemblies, and 3ds Max Design software is a great tool for generating visually stunning rendered animations. This hands-on labs fuses the 2 programs and covers topics related to the animation of Inventor assemblies using 3ds Max 2014. You learn how to import an Inventor assembly that will be used for animation in 3ds Max. You also learn strategies for building a hierarchy based on the animation requirements for the imported models. The class steps you through the process of creating keyframe animation of specific moveable parts. Finally, you learn about the tools that are available for editing keyframes and tweaking the overall look and timing of the animation. To complete the process, you learn how to configure and render an image sequence for final output using the Quicksilver hardware renderer.

Maya software has recently added some significant new tools for character rigging and animation. These include Offset Parent Matrix, which creates an entirely new way to think about rigging characters. Understand how this feature works and how it can simplify rigs to make them both faster and easier to understand. In addition, new utility nodes such as UV Pin, Proximity Pin, and Rivet can help accelerate facial animation and other skinning tasks. Learn how to use these tools to create better rigs for your characters. Animation features include a brief tour of the new Maya Motion Library, along with a number of animation productivity enhancements, which can speed the animation process.

Creating animations beyond simple camera flyovers and keyframe sequences can be a daunting task for those in the engineering and architectural fields. The ability to use the more advanced animation tools offered in 3ds Max software opens up many new ways of presenting and controlling the complex and intricate models we create. This class will look at several of these tools, from wire parameters to complicated linking and constraints, used to automatically animate models. This class will feature a demonstration and deconstruction of the model used for creating the Interstate 90 Track Bridge, which, in an engineering first, will let light-rail vehicles travel over the I-90 floating bridge in Seattle, Washington. The model created for workshops and design reviews needed to be a real-time, interactive tool that could respond to real-world input values such as lake level and wind to measure critical elements.

The presentation will show a live demonstration of the workflows used for creating an animation in 3ds Max software and in Maya software, including how to prepare them and export the data in order to import them into VRED software for doing a real-time visualization. The live demonstration will show examples of classic keyframe animations, cloth-like vertex animation, and character animation from 3ds Max software and Maya software to VRED software.

3ds Max Design rendering and animation software is extremely powerful. It can also be intimidating and overwhelming for the novice or casual user. This class will show you the specific workflows and tools you need to quickly and effectively create still images and animated sequences for visualizing building projects. We will cover specific settings to control both interior and exterior lighting (including night scenes), and easy yet effective methods to create animated walk-through sequences of a building. Stop getting lost in the miasma of tools that are unnecessary for building animation, and stop going down blind alleys. This class will focus strictly on the tools that you need to do your job.

This class is a case-study presentation about the use of Maya software to produce a 3D-animated TV pilot for the Brazilian market with almost no money. Although Maya is usually thought of as the software of choice of big Hollywood studios, it can also be very effective in a low-budget context. The TV pilot used as a case study, "Dragao de Aco” (Steel Dragon), was produced with a grant from the Brazilian government in 2017–2018. It is a 22-minute, 3D-animated TV pilot with anime-inspired visuals.

The modeling is done, time for some fun. Attendees will take their model out of Revit software and move it into 3ds Max software and learn how to animate it utilizing particle systems, space warps, and the Mass FX tools. A basic understanding of the UI, tools, modifiers, and key framing in 3ds Max software will be required. It’s time to relax and create some beautiful and fun animations. You’ve spent months building the models and stressing over deadlines. In this class you’ll animate a controlled build of your Revit model in 3ds Max software with particle systems, and then you’ll destroy the model with Mass FX. The example provided will be a structural model, but you can apply techniques to all discipline models.

See this AU expert’s work in the gallery