Deborah R. Fowler
Resources for VSFX
160 Introduction to Visual Effects Programming
Posted Aug 20 2018Updated on July 9 2024
click here for Python Information
click here
for Houdini Information
click here for Submission Guidelines and Rules
Assignments are available online only.
- Please review these notes regularly during the course of this quarter.
Due Dates (link to google calendar)
| Weight |
Requirements |
Reviews/Dailies |
Deadlines
(by class number) |
Grading |
|
| 20 |
E1: Python
Intro - Quilting |
out 1 |
due 6 (General Concepts) |
GR1 |
|
| 20 |
E2:
Python Files - Hurricane |
out 6 |
due 9 (File I/O) |
GR2 |
|
| 20 |
E3: Python
Strings - Random Art |
out 9 |
due 13 (String Manipulation) |
GR3 |
|
| 20 |
E4:
Houdini Intro |
out 13 |
due 17 (Parsing Script) due 19 (Houdini
Intro) |
GR4 |
|
| 10 |
In-class exercises |
daily |
|||
| 10 |
Professionalism |
In keeping with creating a studio environment you will be expected to adhere to deadlines and show your work in progress in a "dailies" fashion.
If you have questions, let me know. I am always happy to give you feedback to help you improve your work but you have other projects/exercises to complete within this quarter. Improvement and deadlines are part of the studio process.
Reminder: You are always encouraged to refine your work, however at some point deadlines require you to put it aside. You will not be re-graded for work submitted after deadlines but it will still count toward your professionalism grade. Improving your work is important but so is being able to work within the deadlines.
OVERVIEW
In this course you are required to learn two programming languages. In our class this will consist of python, and briefly Houdini languages, and bash.
Programming and scripting are both very useful in Visual Effects. After this class you will be familiar with the concepts of programming and comfortable in the linux command line environment. If you are interested in exploring further, in VSFX 375 we cover C++ and Houdini VEX.
Class Notes
Class 1-20 please refer to the syllabus located on blackboard
Helpful Links:
LECTURES
TEXTBOOK
If you have never coded before:
- https://www.google.com/doodles/celebrating-50-years-of-kidscoding
- https://code.org/starwars
- https://scratch.mit.edu
TIPS:
- Installing python
video instruction above for 3.6.8/Windowsx86-64 executable installer - still works for 3.10 which is what we are using
- Screen snap? Use snipping tool on Windows and gnome-screenshot
-a on Linux
- IDLE is on the start menu in Windows (on your home computer) or can be accessed by right-clicking a .py file. However on some Monty computers, you may need to access it by doing the following:
- Open a file explorer window (click on any folder or type WindowsKey and E)
- In a file explorer window at the top type in the path C:\Python27\Lib\idlelib
- Find the file idle.bat
- Drag idle.bat to your Desktop and "Create shortcuts here"
- Alternatively you can bring up a cmd window and type C:\Python27\Lib\idlelib\idle.bat
- Do not mix spaces and tabs
- Geany - set preferences for:
- Tools to be able to run ON LINUX CentOS ONLY set xterm to gnome-terminal, ON LINUX ROCKY NO NEED TO CHANGE, however if you want a larger terminal font
- On Rocky use xterm -fa "Mono:Size=36" -e "/bin/sh %c"
- Tools to be able to run ON WINDOWS leave as the
default - if you accidentally changed it, the default is shown
below cmd.exe /Q/C %c
- set Editor/Display preferences with both Show
indentation guides and Show white spaces on (see below) - this
will make it easier to see if you have mixed spaces and tabs
(Can also be found in View menu)
- to repair this go to Preferences/Files and check Replace tabs with space
MIX FIX:
- ALTERNATIVELY you could also simply replace your \t
character (tab) with 4 spaces in your document (conversely you
can replace 4 spaces with a tab), but the above option is
easiest
- VERSIONS Spring quarter - versions of python were
3.9.18 on Linux and 3.10.5 on Windows. No need to change the
default, however in past quarters we pointed geany to a specific
version (3.6) by going to Build/Set Build Commands and
set python to python3.6 as per the diagram below.
Note for MAC users - you can install geany on the mac (or sublime, or idle which should already be accessible - access a terminal window and type idle)
https://www.geany.org/Download/Releases
I am not a MAC user, so I have not verified this personally - all Windows and Linux notes I have tested personally and verified.
Student Responsibility reminders:
- when an exercise or project is assigned, read over the description
- keeping up with assigned homework is expected - it is part of acting professionally
- check your class slack daily
- work is submitted to Dropbox.com - on
due date - start of class - no re-submissions