Middle school kids learn about 3D animation

In Kent Ganevsky’s 3D animation class at Roosevelt Middle School, students are learning the tools of the trade on software that animation professionals have used to create blockbuster movies, such as “The Hobbit” and “Avatar.”

The Autodesk Maya software has only recently been incorporated into the students’ daily curriculum, at the urging of Ganevsky, who spent nearly 20 years selling animation software to studios such as Sony and Disney.

For the past seven years, he’s been teaching at Roosevelt Middle School, where he is intent on introducing young teens to 3D animation so they can expand on their skills in high school.

On Thursday afternoon, 13-year-old Kimberly Vizcarra replayed a piece of animation of a metal flower, sprouting up with an expanding stem and unfolding petals. It took her two days to create it.

“We’re getting a head start,” Vizcarra said.

Behind her, fellow eighth-grader Shiv Bhagat created an image of an American flag attached to a flag pole within minutes, but he had yet to study the way cloth moves in order to create the flag’s movement in his animation.

Shiv is already planning to become an animator, and said he’s been improving on his speed since he began the class.

Even as the students learn the basics of a complex software program, they have all been able to download at home and on their classroom computers, Ganevsky is impressed at their ability to push through mistakes or frustrations in learning and exploring the program.

“The younger generation has absolutely no inhibitions or no frustrations. They’ll just click and click and click until they get it… They’ve just done amazing work,” he said.

Ganevsky himself has learned that it’s been more effective to provide his students with online lessons they can watch at their own pace, as opposed to reviewing textbooks.

His online video lessons also stick to two or three features, and he walks students through them at a slower pace than industry-made lessons that point out each of the program’s features in one video.

“You have to show them one or two features, and then have them build something,” he said.

Next, he plans to introduce students to a video-game-programming system.

“If these kids want to get started in middle school and high school, they would be experts (by the time they graduate),” he said.

Even though 13-year-old Aaron Santillan does not want to pursue animation as a career, he’s pleased with Ganevsky’s class and what he’s learned.

In the past several weeks, he’s created animations including a domino effect, a bowling image and a comet.

“I was really good at drawing and I wanted to take this class to see what I could do…(Mr. Ganevsky) is really hard working and he forces us to do better,” Aaron said.