Executive Summary

Introduction

I was recruited to come to Singapore to become a founding faculty member in the newly established Nanyang Technological University's (NTU), School of Art, Design and Media (ADM) in 2004. I’ve been involved in teaching and research since 1980, however in more informal industry based settings, developing techniques for application in the burgeoning field of digital animation and teaching my junior colleagues these techniques. After working professionally in the animation industry for 25 years for major film production studios like Dreamworks Feature Animation and Rhythm, Hues Studios Los Angeles, Disney, Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Brothers Pictures, I felt that the best place to share my expertise and continue pursuing my research interests was in academia.

Most notable to my activities here at NTU on which I will elaborate later in this document is how I’ve involved students in applied study. With funding granted by the National Research Foundation an outside governmental agency, I’ve formed collaborative teams comprised of Professors from different colleges at NTU and their students. My collaborators come from many areas that have interests in animation that have significant motivation to work with artists under my tutelage. These include research teams from the School of Computer Engineering (SCE), the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE), the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & Information (SCI) and The National Institute of Education (NIE) as well as industrial collaborators from major animation studios both locally and internationally. Two of these projects are led by Assistant Professor Miao Chun Yan of SCE and Assistant Professor Kim Beaumie of NIE. Together as a team of researchers we have 3 National Research Foundation grants totaling close to 5 million Singapore dollars. Two of these projects led by the other professors, are being tested in the Singapore secondary school system as models of learning based research focused on instigating inquiry in the learner.

The project I lead concentrates on creating adaptive narrative forms in real-time cinema. All three of these projects have involved currently enrolled ADM students as work-study personnel, recently graduated ADM students as Project Officers as well as Masters (MSc) students both enrolled and recently graduated and currently enrolled PhD students from other colleges in the university. In addition two students under the tutelage of Assistant Professor CHEONG Siew Ann of the School of Physical & Mathematical Sciences are working on Monster Locomotion and Real-Time Crowd Simulation as FYP students.

This portfolio is a compilation of documents that most highlight my academic achievements at NTU, however these are intended to be only a sampler of the materials generated. I am attaching a DVD that takes a more comprehensive evaluation of the achievements that I have made while working in Singapore.

Advancing to Tenured Associate Professor will endorse my research efforts enable me to further expanding upon my currently funded projects by weaving curricula into them and allow me to explore new and exciting animation research with the goal of further developing the Animation Industry sector in Singapore pushing it into a more visible and global scene.

The following points highlight the most important elements of my academic portfolio:

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Teaching

Teaching Philosophy

I believe that by teaching through example, in particular by exploring through practical and relevant demonstrations structured to support original artistic innovation in course study, enables the student to learn, understand and master difficult concepts visualizing their goals. My teaching style, aligned with my research focus is to foster and engender creativity by encouraging students to understand the emotive and intellectual themes they are investigating as a construct and then move forward with these as tools to capture and elaborate the creative essence that is the thrust of their artistic expression.

My teaching is highly influenced by the 25 years I’ve worked as a professional artist. To survive and thrive in the highly competitive animation industry I’ve always been aware of the need to keep abreast with technical, creative and aesthetic trends. The end goal of my teaching is to encourage students to discover by making things that have meaning, learning ultimately to function outside of the instructional environment and to seek the detailed knowledge needed for the many specific tasks that form the highly technical and ever changing area of digital animation autonomously learning to independently find answers to their questions, thereby shifting the burden of self improvement to them as artists and providing them a strategy and understanding of the need for life-long learning. I agree with the assertion that people learn best through practice, active experimentation, review and revision.

I attempt to teach the fundamentals incrementally. In my Intro to Storyboard class (ANI260) I teach the history and basis of stylistic formats commonly in used early on so that the student understands that these constructs are tools and not rigid constraints. In my 3D Modeling classes I try to eliminate the technical challenges that students face with assignments that build upon the previous in complexity. This enables the student to create works of their own to the capacity and degree of which they are able. By fostering an understanding of a complex thing in a simple way, students learn creative concepts that go beyond the ever-renewing techniques demonstrated to them. In addition, students learn to reform their approach and to solve problems with the most elegant solution.

As a university professor, my goal is to encourage the development of independent and critical thinking, promote a lifetime of intellectual growth and personal development, sustain a learning environment that supports self-advocacy and problem solving skills, adjust my classes to my students’ ability to learn, clearly state my expectations, infect my students with an enthusiasm for animation and learn through reflection passing that habit on to my students.

Teaching Responsibilities

As Assistant Professor of Animation, I conduct in-class instruction with an on average attendance of about 15 students per class, per term each year. During my first year at ADM I taught four different subjects. In the first term I was taught Foundation Drawing and Foundation Design and Time and then added on another class teaching 3D Modeling. Table 1 shows the courses that I currently teach.

Table 1: Courses that I’ve Taught in the Past Three Years

Term	Year	Course	Enrollment	Elective/Core
1	2006/07	ANI230	13	Elective
1	2006/07	ANI230	14	Elective
1	2006/07	ANI260	14	Core
2	2006/07	ANI230	15	Elective
2	2006/07	ANI255	8	Core
2	2006/07	ANI260	17	Core
1	2007/08	ANI230	17	Elective
1	2007/08	ANI230	18	Elective
1	2007/08	ANI410	14	Core
2	2007/08	ANI255	13	Elective
2	2007/08	ANI450	8	Core
1	2008/09	ANI220	18	Core
1	2008/09	ANI390	19	Core
2	2008/09	ANI230	17	Elective
2	2008/09	ANI260	8	Core
1	2009/10	ANI495	16	Core

 

ANI230:3d Modeling Workshop is a studio elective. In this course I teach students the fundamentals of animation 3D sculpting. Students entering this class vary in skill and experience. Often this course is taught in term 1. Students that take this class generally have no or little experience with digital sculpting and others come in with considerable technical skills. The class is more about concepts of modeling rather than specific tools however given that they must use these tools to make animated films the software taught is primarily Autodesk Maya and ZBrush. These software packages allow students to move up into the third year with the ability to create models and materials for their animated films. Recently I added one project that uses Boujou tracking software. Using the wizard gizmo in Boujou the student creates a tracked file that has 3D elements in it with the movie file imbedded into an image plane. In the assignment the student creates a simple sculpture and places it into a virtual space however this space is represented as somewhere on the NTU campus. Though relatively complex in conceptualization this project introduces visual effects modeling pipeline for feature film and leads the student into their third and fourth year with many opportunities for expression.

Creating digital sculptures for animation is an intensive process. There is a large amount of information to absorb in this class. In this class many students realize that they may not have the drive for this kind of work. However the class does demonstrate to the student the processes that entail digital sculpting for entertainment. To successfully complete this course the student must commit to a process that takes immense concentration for long periods of time. I’ve created many detailed “how-to” presentations for simple tasks that enable students to incrementally learn the most basic processes involved and have provided these to the students. However the student must be able to find additional information by themselves. I’ve had the library purchase numerous DVD tutorials for the class to use. In addition my door is always open for one on one consultation.

This class comes at a turning point in the student’s advancement through the digital animation process making evident that for some modelling may not be what they choose to focus on in their studies at ADM.

Some comments from this course: “…he is able to stimulate my thoughts (not only spoon-feeding)” Academic Year 2009/2010 - Term 2. “Very relaxed and comfortable learning environment. Very approachable, and very willing to give help and critique.” ”The lecture slides proves to be very useful.” “He always willing to help us to solve the problems for our homework, not only class exercises but also from other subjects such as animation seminar.” “He’s a very helpful and encouraging teacher. Friendly and easy to approach too.” “The projects gets difficult progressively. Hence being able to grasp tiny bits of the modelling principle, and apply it well and into the overall learning process.” Academic Year 2008/2009 - Term 1.

I taught ANI390 Animation Seminar during the Academic Year 2008/2009 - Term 1. The ANI390 ANIMATION SEMINAR I Course Description, co-written with the then Academic Chair states that the course intention “is to manifest a semester long pursuit of artistic research into creating expressive content within an animation context.” During the Academic Year 2009/2010 - Term 1 students for the first time in the teaching of this class actually completed a short film. I felt that this was a great accomplishment. I conducted the class through a seminar approach with the class of students intended give critique to their fellow students. This is a tough class in that the student must do a storyboard early on in the semester, while deciding on a technique to do the project in and then actually complete the film, all within a little more than 13 weeks.

ANI260:Intro to Storyboarding is my favourite subject to teach. In this course I cover the visual structure of film focusing on a deconstructionist classic approach to cinematic narrative. Animation story-boarding is a art form that is primarily composed of visual and narrative design. In this course I have students do 5 boards, 1. Minimalist, 2. Classic, 3. Surreal/Fantastic, 4. Public Service Announcement, 5. Independent Design. We examine standard storyboard design structures for presentation as well as narrative exposition. The final project must be in the form of an animatic or Leica reel, set to sound. Student comments: “He has a very clear plan on what he plans to teach, and follows very closely to the schedule which makes the student understand the direction he’s heading. Lots of video example and screening which is good.“Academic Year 2006/2007 - Term 1, “Did a lot of research to show us the examples of a good storyboard as well as how making a animation story,” Academic Year 2009/2010 - Term 2.

I’ve taught Animation Final Project (ANI410 & ANI450) and ANI260 Intro to Storyboarding and in the coming Academic Year will be teaching Animation Final Project (ANI495).

Other testimonials from students both currently engaged in research and otherwise are included in Appendix 3.

To better understand how to educate I have taken and will continue taking workshops at, The Centre for Educational Development, on teaching strategies. Some of the workshops I’ve taken are listed in Table 2.

Table 2 The Centre for Educational Development Workshops

I am finding that in having been granted funds for research, the best place for teaching is my lab. The work-study students I engage with have an experience that goes beyond the classroom given that they must actually use their creativity collaboratively to actualize a final product. Although the final vision of the project is not theirs their contributions are most evident on the research.

In addition to the teaching at the university and related to research and service, I began volunteer work in the Singapore Prison System. The course I introduced was informally called Teaching Cinematic Literacy. Here I experimented with story narrative creation via a lab that I established that uses computer games to make narrative. The idea was to interface my students with the prisoners through the artwork they mutually created. Some of these works were shown at the International Symposium on Electronic Art (ISEA) 2008, Singapore. This work was later recognized by the Singapore Corporation of Rehabilitative Enterprises (SCORE) with a Special Recognition Award 2008.

During the 2008/09 Academic year I volunteered to become the ACM SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 Educators Program Chair. During this time I travelled throughout Asia talking about our mission of launching the inaugural ACM SIGGRAPH Asia conference in Singapore and presenting talks about my teaching and research at NTU.

Post-Graduate Students Trained

I was approached by TAN Siewlan a MSc student from the School of Computer Engineering in 2006. She showed interest in working under my supervision to complete a Masters thesis degree. She used my research as her topic. At the time I was doing work with Conversational Agents, characters that you can talk to. Some of this work is posted on the URL: http:\\www.cloned3.net. Hers is the character Yuanlin Alone. The work she did resulted in a poster that was accepted and displayed at ACM SIGGRAPH 2006. Her dissertation report is called “Artificial Agents and Real Time 3D Characters“ and is listed as PROJECT ADH-ADM-06-0002 in the NTU library.

I was fortunate to have a co-supervised a masters student from SCE along with Assistant Professor Qian Kemao PhD. Ms. Kurumbal Mohan Aishwarya (MSc 2009) approached me to be her co-supervisor on her Master’s thesis. All of her work for her degree that specialized in texturing in 3D animation was completed in my research lab.

Current PhD Students

I’ve two PhD students that I co-supervise. One of these students is working under my research grant Cinematics and Narratives project, the other is working as an Institute for Media Innovation (IMI) scholar.

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Research and Scholarship

Overview

Throughout my career what has motivated me the most is the opportunity that animation offers for active experimentation. Each job opportunity I’ve taken has been based on its availability to provide time for personal exploration and experimentation with animation. During the past 5 years at NTU my inclination toward research manifested itself into three substantial outside grants supported by the National Research Foundation (NRF) along with other university supported research projects.

Having worked in the animation industry making movies, games and television commercials, I am proficient in animation techniques involved in digital film-making. My professional experience includes work at major studios in interactive media, broadcast television, console games and feature films. At Dreamworks Feature Animation when I started working there in 1995, I worked with the founding team of artists and researchers on DreamWorks Feature Animation’s innovative production pipeline for crowd scene generation on the Prince of Egypt. I have extensive experience in feature animation and live action visual effects having worked on a many successful feature film productions both animated and live action many of which had substantial budgets of more than $100 million USD.

As a researcher my interests are in emergent computer animation techniques such as synthetic sculpture, motion and related forms in popular culture such as visual characterization and storytelling with both real-time and rendered imagery. My research explores the visual and behavioral representation of the animated form, including the creation of intelligent animated characterizations that have rich personalities and display emotive and evocative states and that are flexible enough to respond to the viewer within a predetermined and simulated performance. With a focus on the narratological aspects of animation research, I am currently conducting studies that investigate the emotive impact of animated imagery. I share these interests with my students and colleagues. Some of my students have joined me after graduation as Project Officers. I have engaged many currently enrolled students in work-study and others I have taken on as URECA scholarship students.

Work done with URECA scholars is always rewarding. I have included work by two URECA students to this document, one a mid-year poster and the other a end of year report (see Appendix 2).

Research as Primary Investigator

In 2008, I received funds from the NRF to pursue research in the form of a substantial grant of more than 1.7 million Singapore dollars. This grant expires in December of 2011. I currently have 17 researchers working on NRF2008IDM-IDM004-003 Cinematics and Narratives (CaN): Creating Stories within Real-Time Visual Toolsets. With 12 people working in ART4-1 at the School of Art, Design and Media building and another smaller crew of 5 people located in the College of Engineering, we are making substantial progress on the project. This past summer l engaged an additional 10 undergraduate students on work-study. Designed to be an adaptive movie system it will be visually interesting and robust.

The research funding has granted me the opportunity to employ ADM students after they have graduated with their Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Additionally I’ve been able to hire people with varying degrees of experience some with extensive work in the field, some freshly graduated with Master of Science in Computer Engineering (MSc) degrees and yet others currently in pursuit of PhD’s. The CaN seeks to answer the following questions: “What makes a work of art have meaning? How do these associations affect movies? Is this something we can measure? If so, can we make a movie system that tracks and modifies these affective elements in a way that is interesting to an audience?”

International Impact

I have presented papers widely on this project with more than 10 publications this past year as first author, one of which earned a “Best Research Paper” award at the conference. I have been invited to present twice in Korea. The first presentation was at an International Symposium at Dongju University in Busan, South Korea called, “Creative Imagination and Cultural Technology,” on February 22, 2010, My talk focused on “Specialization and Collaboration: Approach to Interdisciplinary Research in Contemporary Animation.” The second presentation was on “The Future of Cinema and 3D Stereoscopy: Challenges Facing Film-Makers,” at the 2010 Jeonju International Film Festival (JIFF 2010) in Jeonju, South Korea. I was recently invited to participate in a University of New South Wales (UNSW) International Research Workshop in Sydney where leading mid-career researchers in Creative Arts, Design and the Humanities from a number of leading universities and institutions are being invited to attend. I will be presenting my research in Australia during the Sydney International Animation Festival from the 24th through the 26th of September, held by the University of Technology Sydney.

Co-Primary Investigator collaborations in the University

Along with my CaN research project I am currently engaged in another two NRF funded projects. As co-Primary Investigator these initiatives primarily focus on stimulating inquiry based learning in the classroom within the context of Singaporean secondary school students. These two NRF funded research projects have had teams of up to 14 people each with numerous artists involved. The projects NRF2007IDM-IDM003-068 - Serious Immersion and Embodied Learning: Traces of Dinosaurs in Earth System Science (Co-PI) Immersive Virtual Environments and NRF2008IDM-IDM001-030 - Intelligent Agent-Augmented Multi-User Virtual Environments: Research into Designs for Learning Environments of the Future are collaborative research with National Institute of Education’s Learning Sciences Research Lab, the College of Computer Engineering and the School of Art, Design and Media.

I am working with Assistant Professor PerMagnus Lindborg on a Tier1 grant (#200604393R, $50,000 SGD, Academic Research Fund) called, “Exploring KINETOAUDIOVISUAL parameter mapping in virtual instrument performance and interactive installation,” as a co-Primary Investigator. We share interests in deconstructing the meaning of the artifacts we create.

I have one project that started as a SUG granted in 2007 that is yet not closed. The project, “Creating Socially Relevant Content in the Digital Animation Form” was in part work that I did in the Singapore Prison School with inmates. It came out of an earlier Tier 0 grant where I worked with inmates to develop movies from video games. This research was not closed when the CaN research project launched. As part of CaN I am interested in following up with the introduction of our system in the prison as a test-bed. These plans however are currently in the development stage.

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Service

Service to the University

During the first three years of my work at ADM my primary duties were related to recruitment of undergraduate students, the review of undergraduate student portfolio submissions, a yearly task now shared by the more than 40 full time faculty however during the first 3 years this task was shared by a fraction of that number, during the first year there were only 5 of us hired to do the work. This included the creation and grading of the faculty test, a test given to incoming students that along with their portfolio we used to assess the merit and potential of their application to our school and the design of our Foundations Program; the review and grading of student portfolios, associated publicity and promotion, the development of a core curricula with electives for our respective programs. During the first year of ADM I taught and contributed to the development of the syllabus for 2 different foundation subjects: Drawing Foundations and Design and Time, our 4D design class. In addition I contributed to the design and structure including a number of syllabi for our three year specialization program that is now our Animation Area. I’ve been involved in the writing and rewriting of curricula; we have revised our curricula to new formats with the support of the Acting Chair Academic.

My most current administrative workload has been as the Animation representative to the Final Year Project Committee; given that I have a large number of research funds obtained from outside of the university I was asked to I serve on the Research Committee for the Academic Years 2008/2009, 2009-2010 and this current Academic Year 2010/2011. I served on the Reappointment Review Committee for the Academic Year 2008/2009.

I am the Undergraduate Research Experience on Campus (URECA) program Faculty Supervisor 2007/2008, 2008/2009, 2009/2010 and 2010/2011. This program enables the top 5% of our students to work on research with faculty. During my first year of taking on this duty, the Academic Year 2007/2008, a scant 10 percent of the students eligible actually took on the scholarship and opportunity to work with faculty. During the last two years through my recruitment efforts 90 percent of students eligible took on the scholarship.

Recently I was requested to attend the Workshop for 2010 focuses on Creative Arts, Humanities and Design at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. This workshop was convened to prioritize research collaboration in the areas of Creative Arts, Humanities and Design. At that workshop I was appointed Visiting Research Fellow, a three year posting that makes funding schemes in Australia available to me for research with others in Australia.

Public Service

In collaboration with and coordinated by SCORE (Singapore Corporation of Rehabilitative Enterprises), as part of the “Yellow Ribbon Project” I set up a lab to promote skills and creative learning with storytelling using game engine technology or Machinima techniques for inmates of the Singapore Prison System at Kaki Bukit Prison School as part of their rehabilitation. This work was recognized and granted a Special Recognition Award at the Yellow Ribbon “Celebrating Second Chances Awards 2008,” Saturday, 6 Sept 08, in recognition of work done with inmates in the Singapore prison system as part of “Creating Socially Relevant Content in the Digital Animation Form” research project. A National Award that resulted from research inspired volunteer work.

Service to Professional Bodies

Upon moving to Singapore I began volunteer work and served as a board member for the local chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH. During this time I gave talks promoting computer generated imagery and techniques, judged film submissions to ImageReel 2005, conducting short presentations as a member of the chapter to public forums from 2005 to 2009.

During that time we decided to form a committee to bring SIGGRAPH to Asia. I was part of that protem committee steering the initial proposal for SIGGRAPH in Asia 2008 and 2009. The SIGGRAPH Conference and Exhibition is a top tier conference run by ACM SIGGRAPH and is to be held in Singapore in December for the years 2008 and 2009. At the SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 I volunteered to be the Educators Program Chair, This was the first SIGGRAPH Conference and Exhibition on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques in Asia in Singapore happening on 10 December 2008, I have volunteered to be the Chair of SIGGRAPH Asia 2012 should it come to Singapore again and my services be needed.

Service to Society and Local Industry

I have made myself available to various organization as a Juror having been a Eurographics 2009 Educators Program Juror and most recently an SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 Animation Festival Juror. I am currently an External Examiner for Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s School of InfoComm Technology (ICT) for the period of 2009-2011.

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Aspirations

As an aspiration of my Cinematics and Narratives (CaN) research I would like to continue by developing curricula around the project enabling students and other faculty to both experiment with animation narrative and design and create the more immersive experiences that authoring in a high resolution game engine affords.

As part of the CaN work I am collaborating with former NTU Associate Professor WONG, Kok Cheong of Sparky Animation Pte Ltd.. We have been in discussions with potential industrial partners to create a research development think tank that creates animation projects for licensing in industry. Approaching this from the perspective of academic research and scholarship we plan to establish a research group that examines popular genre, design motif and story archetypes seeking to find themes that are the most likely to succeed in the global marketplace. With the plan of documenting animation theory and practice, as well as standard industry practices we plan conduct research focused on creating innovative concepts that have real potential, development packages that are globally marketable and that have universal appeal. But along with this we plan to develop a unique global identity for animation content, technical development related to animation and exploratory production practices coming from Singapore.

This work will utilize research done on the CaN interface in that we will use the system developed to optimize narrative flow, visual development and overall look characterization. Like the CaN project all of this work will need both enrolled student and recently graduated engineers and artists and masters (MSc) students to function as work-study personnel, project officers and research associates to conduct design research: e.g. explore contemporary archetype and their sources, conduct reflective development on concept design, digital assets creation and do the system programming needed to develop a broad range of stylistic motif that is needed to understand the dynamic field of animation. As the project matures I believe we will have attained critical mass on the work and it will attract investment opportunities from outside of academic and governmental structures available in Singapore for media related research.

Evidence

I have attached within this academic portfolio a selection of evidence demonstrating worthiness to take the next step in my academic career however further evidence of Teaching, Service and Research & Scholarship is within the DVD attached to the document and on my website.

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http://www.visual-analysis.com/academic

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