CSE 458 Grading Guidelines

Grades are broken down as follows:

• Project 1 - Yacht and Hand Modeling (8% of final grade)
  
  Individual project criteria:
  • Following instructions
  • Resemblence to reference
  • Good mesh topology
  • Clean outliner
• Project 2 - Head Modeling (8% of final grade)
  
  Individual project criteria:
  • Following instructions
  • Resemblence to reference
  • Good mesh topology
  • Clean outliner
• Project 3 - Shading (8% of final grade)
  
  Individual project criteria:
  • Following instructions
  • All objects shaded in a believable manner
  • Creativity, aesthetics
  • Good UV topology
  • Clean outliner
• Project 4 - Lighting (8% of final grade)
  
  Individual project criteria:
  • Following instructions
  • Creativity, aesthetics
  • Clean outliner
• Project 5 - Rigging (8% of final grade)
  
  Individual project criteria:
  • Following instructions
  • Functional, "clean" rigs (e.g. proper channels locked and hidden)
  • Good weight painting
  • Clean outliner
• Project 6 - Animation Basics (8% of final grade)
  
  Individual project criteria:
  • Following instructions
  • Silhouette, weight, line of action in poses
  • Presence and correct use animation principles
  • Correct use of Animation Principles
  • Readability and accuracy of planning sheets
  • Creativity, aesthetics, believability
• Final Project (32% of final grade)
  
  Group project criteria:
  • Technical
  • Following instructions
  • Creativity, aesthetics, believability
  • Application of production principles
  • Group Participation
• Character Posing Exercise (5% of final grade)
  
  Individual exercise criteria:
  • Following instructions
• Facial Expression Exercise (5% of final grade)
  
  Individual exercise criteria:
  • Following instructions
• Attendance/Individual Critiques/Progress Report (10% of final grade)

Grading Criteria for all Work:

Professionalism (Participation and Collaboration)

• Ability to work in your group as both a leader in your area of expertise and productive team member to your group as a whole.
• Ability to receive and apply feedback from the Director and maintain a positive attitude towards the project.
• Ability to respond to communication from the Director promptly and respectfully.
• Where direction seems inconsistent or unclear, to have the ability to bring the discrepancy to the Director for discussion in office hours if needed.
• Ability to maintain a positive attitude toward the project.
• Ability to follow through on work that has been assigned.
• Ability to make constructive suggestions by doing the work assigned and providing alternate technical and aesthetic solutions when needed.
• Ability to communicate positively and constructively and to resolve concerns quickly and effectively.
• Ability to work collaboratively with other students and appropriate team members.
• Ability to provide appropriate and creative contributions to all aspects of the production.
• Ability to provide constructive and proactive approaches to problem solving during dailies in support of the goals in the agenda.
• Ability to work collaboratively to reach a common goal and vision including the ability to be flexible and fill in for a fellow student who needs help.
• Ability to find someone to fill in if an emergency keeps you from finishing your work on time.

Production (Quality of Individual Work)

• Ability to meet deadlines.
• Ability to manage and organize your time.
• Ability to complete assigned work.
• Ability to apply your skills to produce quality work.
• Ability to offer to take on production tasks and to complete them.
• Ability and willingness to take on extra work and do the job, especially contributions made near the end of a production.
• Ability to effectively and efficiently lead the areas you’ve been assigned.
• To provide weekly reports covering your leadership in your group and your support of other group members or the group as a whole.
• To fill out and submit all self-critiques covering your assessment of how you have functioned in the class as well as all requested critique analysis worksheets that assess how you feel about the work you produced individually and as part of a group.

Late Work Policy:

It is assumed that your work will be on time. Incomplete work will be turned in on time so that it can be evaluated with everyone else. Under some rare and extenuating circumstances, the staff may decide to grade revised projects. Under these circumstances, there will be a 0.5 deduction every day the project is late. After three days, it will be up to the staff to decide whether or not the project will be graded. The breakdown is subject to change as a whole and adjustable on a per-student basis in exceptional cases. It is always better to turn something in incomplete and on time rather than late and complete. See Golden Rule #2 above.