The BMC Alumni Association introduces BMClasses—short, one-hour professional development workshops in biomedical communications. These workshops are free and open to the public. Come learn a new technique or simply freshen up your skills!
Blender 101: An Introductory Crash Course!
Monday, June 14 | 12:00-1:00 p.m.
Instructor: Abeeshan Selvabaskaran (2T2)
Description: Blender is one of the fastest-growing softwares available and competes with the biggest 3D modelling and animation programs in the industry. A huge advantage of Blender is that it's completely open-source and free to use. I've been using Blender for several years and have seen it grow into the magnificent beast it is today. This BMClass will be an introductory crash course to get participants started and excited to use Blender. I'll go over the UI, some of the basics in modelling and texturing, and participants will end the session by creating some simple models.
What you’ll need: Access to a computer with a 3-button mouse and the latest build of Blender (2.92.0) downloaded prior to the BMClass.
Affinity Designer 101: The Antidote to Adobe Illustrator
Tuesday, June 15 | 12:00-1:00 p.m.
Instructor: Dave Mazierski (8T2)
Description: The dominance of Adobe Illustrator in the vector graphics market has not stopped little software Davids from emerging to take on Adobe’s Goliath. One worthy competitor is Affinity Designer, by Serif (Europe) Ltd. Competitively priced at $70 CDN (and it’s available at half price often throughout the year), Affinity Designer offers a suite of tools (with eerily identical keyboard shortcuts) that rival Illustrator’s, plus throws in a set of pixel editing and painting tools that, while not at the level of Photoshop, allows the user to create vector objects that serve as masks for pixel painting all within one file. Affinity can open most common (and Adobe-based) file formats, and save to them as well. This BMClass will feature an overview of the program’s interface and toolset, with examples of artwork created as part of my undergraduate teaching during the recent “work from home or die” academic year. If participants are looking to lighten their monthly software budget, Affinity Designer might be the solution.
What you’ll need: Nothing is required for the demonstration; however, if participants would like to follow along they may download a trial version of Affinity Designer prior to the BMClass.
DaVinci Resolve 101: Your New Favourite Piece of Freeware!
Tuesday, June 15 | 8:00-9:00 p.m.
Instructor: Paul Kelly (1T1)
Description: Known for being the best app for colour-grading video, DaVinci Resolve by Blackmagic is an all-in-one video editing and development tool that also integrates audio editing and node based compositing. It's ridiculous that this software is free. Not only can you do all your video editing, audio editing and 3D compositing in one piece of software, but it renders out the final super fast. In this BMClass I’ll run through a demonstration of DaVinci and how it can be incorporated into participants' video editing workflow.
What you'll need: Nothing is required for the demonstration; however, if participants would like to follow along they may download DaVinci Resolve 17 prior to the BMClass.
Facilitation 101: Digital Workshopping Using Miro
Wednesday, June 16 | 12:00-1:00 p.m.
Instructor: Marina Spyridis (1T6)
Description: Running workshops and acting as a facilitator are useful skills to broaden your ability to creatively ideate on your own work, with teammates, or with clients. In this BMClass, participants will learn the basics of how to structure a workshop, communication & facilitation techniques, what type of assets you should create to run the session, and how to plan for output afterwards. Participants will finish this BMClass with an interactive working session in Miro, a free software that can be used for remote workshopping and facilitation. This BMClass would benefit those who want to improve their communication and facilitation, or aspire to work in strategic design, service design, or consulting.
What you'll need: Access to the internet in order to participate and engage via a Miro board, which is free to use and edit as a guest.
Houdini 101: Getting Molecular with Houdini
Wednesday, June 16 | 7:00-8:00 p.m.
Instructor: Stuart Jantzen (1T3)
Description: Molecules and Houdini are a beautiful marriage! In this BMClass participants will learn how to use Houdini to create a complex molecular structure using biological data. The model will be converted into a reusable tool with adjustable parameters. This session will provide just a taste of the strengths of Houdini, namely data manipulation, procedural model generation, and tool development.
What you'll need: Access to a computer with a 3-button mouse and Houdini Apprentice (Free learning version) downloaded prior to the BMClass. Additionally, participants are strongly encouraged to spend 30 minutes following an introductory tutorial that covers the ultra-basics of using Houdini prior to the session.
Digital Painting 101: Creating Cohesive Colour Palettes
Thursday, June 17 | 8:00-9:00 P.M.
Instructor: Brittany Cheung (2T1)
Description: A relatively informal class on digital painting with an emphasis on colour palettes and layer styles. I will be going through how to pick pleasing, cohesive colour palettes, and how I use layer styles to adhere to the palette as the painting progresses. I will also facilitate a Q&A about my painting process and give impromptu demonstrations of specific techniques based on participants’ requests, as time allows.
What you'll need: Any 2D painting program (Photoshop, Procreate, Clip Studio Paint, etc.) that participants would like to practice in!
Blender 201: Creating a Sciviz Scene
Friday, June 18 | 12:00-1:00 P.m.
Instructor: Eric Chung (2T1)
Description: Blender’s rate of development has skyrocketed since the release of version 2.8, with a significant UI overhaul, and new, unique features continuously being added. Having used Blender since version 2.59, I’ve found that it excels as a jack-of-all trades concepting tool.
In this BMClass, I’ll show participants how to leverage its snappy, real-time Eevee rendering engine for faster iteration in final renders and lookdev. I’ll also introduce Blender’s new Houdini-esque Geometry Nodes, as well as its very comprehensive sculpting toolset. The session will go through how these features work through the creation of a sciviz scene, as well as how they differ from traditional 3D workflows.
What you'll need: Access to a computer with a 3-button mouse and the latest build of Blender (2.92.0) downloaded prior to the BMClass. Participants may also find the following free Blender add-on useful for the session.