Jonas Melin – Teacher and Program Leader
In Sweden’s Upper Secondary School, there is a three year higher education preparatory Arts Program held by S:t Eriks Gymnasium. It features an animation topic that aims to develop students’ abilities to communicate using digital tools.
We’ve recently had a talk with the program leader, arts and design teacher Jonas Melin, to understand his perspective on animation and to hear the Program’s story.
“When we started this Animation profile in 2011, we had a big problem with the render times for 3D. Our computers are good for 2D, but for photorealistic renderings, they are way too slow.” – Mr. Jonas Melin, teacher and program leader
Bogdan: How are the students responding to the ‘communicate through animation’ learning process?
Jonas Melin: The aspect of communication is important. It can be the difference between a simple story and an outstanding masterpiece, between a selling advertisement and something that makes people leave the TV channel for the Internet, between something that connects to your fantasy and something that makes you sleep. To master communication through animation is like mastering a second language.
The students are mostly interested in animation, storytelling or digital painting. Some of them already see animation as a form of communication when they start studying here, but most of them don’t – they only see it as moving images.
The first year we start with Photoshop. It’s a good start because it’s like a Swiss Army knife that introduces layers and shows how easy it is to lie with digital pictures. And to lie with pictures is important – when you animate you need fantasy, inspiration and the ability to think outside of the box. That is why we start with Photoshop.
The saloon at afternoon
After that, we continue with (mostly) animation. Adobe Flash is a good start, but some students use TVPaint Animation or Blender. The first thing to learn is how to show a situation with animation, be it from their own fantasy or from their daily life. The storytelling aspect is not important at this stage; it doesn’t have to be more than just a situation. This is because the students have to learn a couple of things to start with: how to show movement, how to use layers and the timeline, how to use the animation programs and how to use Wacom tablets. And nearly most important – the skill to estimate how long it will take for them to animate something. The important thing here is to encourage the students so they will keep the inspiration and stay curious about animation.
After this, we can start working with skills for communication and storytelling. When the students start a project they create plots and storyboards. Depending on where they are in their learning process, we push them to create more and more advanced stories, animated movements, environments and sound designs. Also, the creation of characters and how to make them credible through a story is a good way to practice communication.
Jacquline
When did you decide to start looking for an external solution to the problem?
When we started this education in 2011 the first students were more into 2D animations, and our computers have enough power for that. After two years the first students appeared that wanted to push the limits with 3D and to manage this we had to split the rendering between our 20 computers. It was quite ok until more and more students found out what was possible with Blender and 3D. We searched for a solution and one of my students read about RenderStreet somewhere on the internet and used it for the last project he made.
What was the impact of not having enough computing power on the teaching and learning experience?
The big problem with not having enough computing power is that it limits the students’ fantasies. When the students are put on hold in their creative process because of technical problems, they can lose their desire and momentum for animation. Long render times stop the creative thinking as well – the technical stuff should just work.
Irivixis On Morianisian Faith by Joseph Stameus. Full video available here.
What made you choose RenderStreet? Did you consider other alternatives?
For a school, the cost is very important. I tried some free alternatives, but they were too slow. Read some reviews about RenderStreet and gave it a try – and it was just what we needed for a reasonable cost. It had a price point that fits our economy, and it was a big improvement in our educational situation. Because we got a friendly personal contact with you and because you made it possible for all of our students to use the same account – we were satisfied. And the alternative, building our own render farm, is very costly – it is not only the cost of buying the computers, we would need to service them as well.
Did you have any trouble (for instance having to go through an internal approval process) in order to move forward with contracting the service?
Not really, I showed the alternatives to the economics department and they were convinced that we didn’t have any better alternative.
Cornelius FizznFresh
How are you currently using RenderStreet in the learning process?
When a student makes an animation, full or test, they pack the Blender file and send it to me through a NAS (they don’t have permission to upload it by themselves). After I have checked the settings for the Blender file, I then send it to RS One for rendering. After we have downloaded the result the student imports the png files to Adobe Premiere Pro and it is time to analyze how well the animation shows the students intentions. Because rendering is quite fast, except for animations with heavy smoke bakings, we often have time to change what’s wrong and send it for another render session.
We use the fast rendering results to be able to discuss the student’s intentions and their finished animations. It can be simple things, like not letting the characters’ feet sink through the ground when it is walking, and it can be more complicated things like timing and natural movements.
What change did this bring in the teaching and learning experience?
To create, render and evaluate during the same week is important – the animation process is a kind of flow and if technical problems delay the process the students will go the safe way and repeat what they’ve done before instead of pushing the limits and learn more.
Tin Can Alfred
Did this have an observable impact on the students’ results in the course?
Yes. The students often want to make better animations than other students did the year before, and the better the result is this year, the harder next year’s students will work. They will keep pushing their limits so they have all the possibilities to go to higher education when they are finished here.
To have a look at more animations by S:t Eriks Gymnasium Arts Program’s students, please visit their YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@sterikanimation
