Now that you have gone through the syllabus, along with its technical details and policies, let’s talk about what this course will actually look like.
The first half of this semester will be an intense introduction to the real-time render engine and development environment of TouchDesigner. We will focus a lot of energy initially on getting everyone up and feeling comfortable with this tool.
There will be a lot of reading since all of the content is presented asynchronously through this website. But I will supplement the course with some synchronous lectures to help guide and aid along the way. I recognize that this is not easy stuff. Don’t worry! We will get through this together even online!
See above in the Text & Reading portion. I will work to create content videos that offer additional information on the content within this website. Likewise, I will post a number of external videos that offer additional information about the content in question.
This course takes time. Some things might be easier than others. I highly encourage you to set aside time in your weekly schedule to devote to course work.
This week is a chance for you to familiarize yourself with tools on your computer, absorb the syllabus, and schedule out time in your week for class work.
This course will mostly run as weekly modules.
When a module is released (i.e., it goes live on Moodle and this site), you will have one week to work through it, complete the homework, and submit your homework. Your homework will always be due by 11:59 PM on the Friday of the next week. Please don’t wait until 11:59 PM to submit your homework. Everyone tries and the Moodle might be on hiatus and then sad things can happen.
For example, Week 2’s Module runs from Friday to Friday, January 26th - February 2th. Therefore, you have through next Friday, February 2th @ 11:59 PM to complete the module and submit your homework. Week 3 will likewise open Friday and run February 2th - February 9th
You should consider anything within the course lecture content under a { TODO: } section to be part of your “homework”.
You will receive additional directives and notes about homework assignments on the Moodle Shell every week.
Most homework assignments will be submitted to a course discussion forum on Moodle. This will allow you and your classmates to see each others assignments, as well as how you each chose to solve the set of problems, without posting links for the whole world to see. You will also be expect to comment and respond to your colleagues works. I think it is critical that you are aware of the work each other is making. This is my current solution to address this need. Further instructions will be provided about how to do this.
I would encourage you to create a directory (folder) on your local machine, within your cloud-based, Box-sync or Microsoft OneDrive directory (folder).
{ Note: }
As a University of Montana Student, you have access to two cloud-based storage solutions. You receive 1TB of storage with both Box and Microsoft Office 365’s OneDrive.
Both of these tools allow you to download an application that creates a local directory (folder) that automatically syncs its contents to the cloud. By storing your work for this class in there, you are;
- Less likely to experience data loss
- Will have all of your data available anywhere you may need, so long as you have an internet connection.
I would highly encourage you to use these one of these tools for all of your UM work.
When you have problems in this course, you have a number of solutions available to assist you in solving them. The following list is the order I would suggest you follow for problem solving.
A quick list of these links is available from the “Help” menubar tab above.