Study Guide - Spring 2011 Final Exam
810:088 Topics in Computing: VE, A, and MG

10-11:50 a.m. Tuesday, May 3rd is our exam time.

  1. Study over the old quizzes from this semester. OK- on a quiz answer means your answer was okay that time, (no points taken off), but any future quiz or test, you would NOT get full credit for the same answer. That is what OK- (OK-minus) means as a grade for an answer. Example: "STAMP" is OK- on quiz four. "CLONE STAMP" is required as the answer for the final exam.

    1. Quiz One. Feb 4th. Quiz One Study Guide and outline of topics.

    2. Quiz Two. Feb 16th. Study Guide for Quiz Two.

    3. Quiz Three. Feb 25th. Study Guide for Quiz Three.

    4. Quiz Four. April 1st. Study Guide for Quiz Four. If you did not use this QUIZ FOUR study guide in late March and/or early on April Fool's day, its time to use it to prepare for the final exam. Especially the Creative Cow tutorial, to review what we did in the hands-on classes! 
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    Photoshop today, Jumpy and Squishy on Friday, and Storyboards.    (FROM THE STUDY GUIDE FOR QUIZ FOUR)
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    1. Review of today's class:
   
       http://www.cs.uni.edu/~jacobson/AE/09/pup/rockPaperScissors.txt
   
       http://www.cs.uni.edu/~jacobson/AE/09/pup/RockPaperScissors.gif
                       
    2. Review of Friday's class:  See #6 Create a Jumpy and Squishy                PLEASE SEE #6 and REVIEW this video
                                         Animation using the Power of ...                              for the final exam.
                                                                                   VIP:  Create a Jumpy and Squishy ...
       http://www.cs.uni.edu/~jacobson/AE/09/pup/RockPaperScissors.html                   SEE LI List Item #6.  VIP!
   
    3. Storyboard concepts and terms.                                               Not too much on Storyboards for the
                                                                                                  final exam.
       http://www.cs.uni.edu/~jacobson/m/wk13/3D/storyBoardAE.html
     
       Storyboard concepts were covered about one week ago.
       Most of the details are on the above web page.

    You will probably need to spend the more time on the quizzes you got any lower scores on. QuizGradesAE088Spr2011.jpg

  2. Fall 2010: Study guide for the final exam from Fall of 2010 has links to the past two semester's quizzes (Spring 2010 and Fall 2010).

  3. Lesson 07: After Effects Apprentice textbook Expressions and Time Games. I will scan in some hand-written notes. We did most of Lesson 07 during the last two weeks of class. Includes wiggle, pick whip, Time Remapping, looping keyframes, stop motion tricks, frame blending, expression controllers, the linear(a, b, c, d, e) expression, and review of converting sound to keyframes to create an Audio Amplitude layer and then pick whipping an expression to the amplitudes.

  4. MASKING and using MASKS on layers in After Effects? The Bumping on Sunset tutorial was done in class. See LI List Items #1, #2, #3, and #4. 
     
a.  See Lesson 4: After Effects Apprentice textbook. Transparent areas are
      creating using 3 approaches: Masks, Track Mattes and Stencils.

      MASKING = "I want to see only the area inside this shape; make the
                                                    outside transparent."
  
     Lesson 4 - Page 88 of After Effects Apprentice book.
  

b. Shape tools are used to create mask paths. Select the layer 1st, apply
            or use the SHAPE tool 2nd.
   
   Note: If no layer is selected, the shape tool will create a brand new
            SHAPE LAYER. If a layer is pre-selected, then a SHAPE tool will
            create a mask path.
   
c.  Masks only effect the layer immediately underneath the layer, i.e. the
      layer the mask is applied to. The mask either hides or reveals the
      layer it is applied to. It has no effect on other layers.
     
Question: When do you get a new SHAPE LAYER instead of a MASK PATH?  WHY?
  5. Photoshop basics review - see quiz #4. This was part of study guide for quiz four. Rock, Paper, Scissors separated into separate layers. Eyedropper, Lasso, Color Modes Indexed and RGB and GIF files, how do zoom in and zoom out, Magic Wand tool, Alt + Backspace to paint with Foreground color, Paste in Place, ...

  6. Flash Buttons Four States and adding interactivity to applications created first with After Effects. Simpler example with screen snapshot of the Flash Timeline for Button symbols. See the invisible states at design time.

  7. Lesson 07 review - part one - Expression Language menu and Linear(t, tMin, tMax, value1, value2) and pick whip linking. Alternative to figuring out the mathematics yourself (dividing by 3.6 to convert degrees 0 to 360 to percents 0 to 100. Making the Drop Shadow stop rotating with the wheel with an expression and the Pick Whip.

  8. Lesson 07: Frame Blending, STRETCHING footage, crossfading previous frames into later frames and ghosting, ghostbusting with pixel motion.

  9. Good luck on your final exams!