Pixar in a Box | Computing | Khan Academy

Pixar in a Box: Curriculum Overview

• Program Overview: A collaborative educational series between Pixar and Khan Academy that explores the technical and artistic processes behind Pixar’s filmmaking pipeline.
• Core Modules:
  • The Art of Storytelling: Covers character development, story structure, visual language, and film grammar.
  • Lighting: Explores light quality, color scripts, master lighting, and character lighting through both physical and virtual activities.
  • Rigging: Teaches the mechanics of character movement, including rotation, translation, scaling, and facial rigging.
  • Animation: Focuses on the intersection of math and art, covering straight-ahead animation, linear interpolation, Bezier curves, and squash-and-stretch techniques.
  • Geometric Transformations: Explores the coordinate plane, translation, scaling, rotation, and composite transformations.
  • Rendering: Covers the mathematics behind rendering, including ray tracing, parametric forms, and intersection calculations (lines, planes, and triangles).
• Technical Skills: Includes modules on hair simulation, particle systems, subdivision surfaces, and coding characters using functions and object-oriented logic.
• Interactive Components: Features numerous hands-on projects, such as animating Luxo Jr., creating custom characters, and coding deformers for a snowman.
• Industry Insight: Includes "Getting to know" segments featuring Pixar professionals like Kim White, Brian Green, Rob Jensen, and Fran Kalal.