About a month into the school year, students at SBISD’s new Harold D. Guthrie Center for Excellence are already bringing their ideas to life.
In 3D Animation, students spent the past three weeks learning to build and render city scenes, beginning with an assignment introduced during their first week of class.
Using Autodesk 3ds Max, they learned to navigate professional software, create basic 3D objects and use move, scale and rotate tools to construct their scenes.
For many students, it was their first experience with 3D animation software and an early introduction to the professional tools, industry expertise and possibilities now available to them at the Guthrie Center.
“3ds Max has an extremely large toolset that can be intimidating to beginners,” instructor Alan Yip Choy said. “Seeing students produce these renders so early is gratifying and encouraging.”
Industry experience in the classroom
Yip Choy brings more than three decades of professional experience in graphic design, commercial art and 3D visualization to his students.
Before becoming an educator, he worked as a designer, art director, senior art director and creative director, supporting international, national and local clients including Exxon, Shell, Texaco, Esso Eastern, The Coastal Corporation, Houston Ballet and BFI.
During his final seven years in the industry, he specialized in 3D visualization of products and services for clients including Burger King and Jiffy Lube.
Today, he is also an Autodesk Certified Instructor for 3ds Max.
His decision to bring that experience into the classroom came from a desire to give students opportunities similar to those that shaped his own career.
“The opportunity was open for me, and I wanted to give back what I was blessed with to the community,” Yip Choy said.
That combination of professional experience and classroom instruction gives students a window into where the skills they are developing can take them.
While 3D animation is often associated with movies and video games, Yip Choy said the technology extends far beyond entertainment. 3D visualization is used in fields ranging from medicine and the military to the judicial system, product development and toy design.
From student to professional
Yip Choy has already seen those possibilities become reality for former Guthrie students.
Marvin Mendoza, a 2012 Westchester Academy for International Studies (WAIS) graduate, spent four years studying 3D Animation at the Guthrie Center. He later built a career as a toy designer with the LEGO Group in the Netherlands.
For Yip Choy, Mendoza’s success captures what it means to be both an educator and professional mentor.
“I wish I could take credit for what he has accomplished, but that would be too much of a stretch,” he said. “Let’s just say that I acted as a road sign in the direction that he took.”
It is a role Yip Choy continues to play for the students now beginning their own journeys at the new Guthrie Center.
A facility to match the possibilities
The new facility gives students and educators an environment designed to support that kind of learning. 3D Animation students have access to professional-grade computer hardware and software, as well as equipment for 3D printing and motion capture.
Yip Choy describes it as an up-to-date, safe learning environment with tools many professionals would value having at their disposal.
As students progress through the program, they move from foundational projects like their first city scenes into increasingly complex digital modeling and animation. They can build portfolios, pursue Autodesk 3ds Max certification and explore college and career pathways in animation, entertainment, design and the many other industries that rely on 3D visualization.
The technology matters. So does the new space. But it is the combination of exceptional educators, industry-connected programs and professional-level learning environments that creates the opportunity.
Just weeks into the school year, students are already discovering what they can do with it.
Visit the Guthrie Center website to learn more about programs and opportunities available to SBISD students.
