The use of highly advanced digital tools such as Maya requires a certain degree of opportunistic agility to see beyond the prescribed use of the manufacturer. The intellectual agility to use these tools in non-prescriptive ways becomes a means of resisting the exceptionally strong biases of these tools. The use of keyframe animation not to make a presentation but to use it generatively. The use of deformation control not to simulate body parts but to investigate topological variation. The use of warps not to simulate water but to produce liquid spaces.
Every object is comprised of surfaces, defined by calculus based spline curves in two directions.
Already, through its geometric logic for defining objects, the software is biased towards the modeling of form based on a system and its performance. The first half of the course will focus on instruction using Maya as a topological modeler as well as discussion on the geometric logics behind its definition of form. The shape and configuration of elements in Maya, instead of being modeled specifically, can be constructed in relation to other objects as well as forces and influences. The second segment of the semester will focus on modeling animate form, form with a specific behavior logic combining an internal logic and external influences and constraints.