Digital visualization tools improve teaching 3D character modeling

Many Universities are building interdisciplinary programs that overlap engineering and fine art departments that focus on games, special effects, animation and other forms of interdisciplinary efforts. With increasing demands for education linking the Engineering Sciences and Fine Arts, fueled by the competitive nature of the industries that recruit graduates, educators need to become more efficient and effective in their task of educating engineering and art majors in cross-disciplinary courses. CS3650 at the University of Utah is a digital character production course. This course is interdisciplinary and draws from several disciplines including computer science, graphics, anatomy, sculpture, art, and entertainment. It is a prerequisite for our machinima class, which immerses students into 3D game engines. Visualization tools are used in the course to help students learn to create better digital models. Presented in this paper is an experimental comparison between traditional visualization tools and digital visualization tools, which are less expensive, easier to distribute, arrange/procure and transport than the traditional tools. Traditional visualization tools include lifelike skeleton reproductions, wooden body mass structures, actual live human models, and anatomy drawing books. The digital visualization tools that are contrasted in this paper are: a layered anatomically correct, digital human model (skin, muscles, masses and some bones adapted from several sources) and a VisTrails version of a properly produced human figure (interactive animation). The digital tools are used to replace the traditional visualization tools used in the same educational curriculum, which teaches students to design, model and produce digital characters for games, machinima, and animation. The quantitative experiment demonstrates that digital visualization tools help to improve a student's understanding of the complex software packages used to produce characters, helps to improve specific techniques used to model 3D characters, and it helps to improve understanding of 3D form, more than the traditional tools within the context of this educational curriculum.