STA Blog

STA Work Blog

STAs: Student Technology Assistants

Who We Are
LAITS: IT and Facilities Director, Joe TenBarge initiated the Student Technology Assistant program in 2004. STAs are UT students who work on a variety of projects in collaboration with UT faculty and LAITS staff members. STAs assist College of Liberal Arts faculty members and administrative staff with print and web design. From building presentations, to creating audio/visual works, and producing online classes in the LAITS film studios, STAs are instrumental in helping COLA faculty realize their vision for multimedia projects that enhance their teaching and the students learning experience. By the end of their student careers, STAs have portfolios which demonstrate their accrued technical and design skills.

Prospective STAs:

Creative and technically inclined students are appointed as STAs for one year, with the possibility of being rehired as long as they study at the university. Applicants for the program are hired before both long semesters. Interested students may look for postings on Hire-A-Longhorn when positions are available. Positions will have Student Technology Assistant (illustrator or web designer) in the title of the job post.

Faculty and Staff:

Faculty & Staff with questions about services, please contact us.

https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/laits/contacts.php

  • Audio Services: Michael C Heidenreich, Audio Services Manager
  • Video Services: Kelly Webster, Video Production Supervisor
  • Graphic Design & Web Design Services: Suloni Robertson, Art Director / STA Program Manager

RUS407 Animation File Reorganization

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Today I almost completed my file reorganization for the RUS407 Animation file reorganization. Yesterday I got all of the props and set pieces in big new files so the animator can easily find the set piece/prop that they want and paste it into their animation file. Today I worked on making the characters super intuitive and very “drag-and-droppable”. All of the variances in characters (head shapes/body styles/mouth shapes) are cleanly housed in one file. Animators can copy over the “master character” and paste it into their document, then quickly select the head and body type they want within that character and get right to animating! I think this will save a lot of time in animating in the future, especially if someone is new to the program.

RUS407 Animation Preliminary Work

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Today I worked on getting the animation files ready for the first load of animations for the RUS407 Online Class. Luckily, Lauren, the project lead for the RUS406 Animations, did a great job making loads of character options, sets pieces and props for last semester’s class that I will be able to use so I won’t have to draw a whole bunch of new things for this semester. Instead, I’m focusing on making the files a little more accessible and the characters a little more “drag-and-droppable” for this semester’s animations. I’ve taken all the props and set pieces from Lauren’s files and put them in new files that I believe will be easier for the RUS407 to access. Then I also started the process of transferring the characters to new files. So far I’ve only made progress on the “Default” Character. It’s important to me that these characters are very much”drag-and-droppable” for ease of use for the novice animator. By that, I mean I believe that all the pieces of the puppet (arms, legs, head, body, mouth and eye shapes) should be contained in one symbol for each type of character and body orientation (front view and side view) so the animator can just find the character and angle they want, copy and paste and immediately start animating. Looking forward to completing this process! I’ve included some pictures of my progress thus far. 

Day 4

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Today I took a crack at my first Russian Oleg Illustration. The characters all had to have winter clothing and the illustration needed a snowman. Overall I am pleased with the outcome and hope to get some notes on this first attempt so I can improve these illustrations in the future!

Progress Day 3!

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3rd day as a Design STA completed! I mainly got to crack down on some of the self-paced tutorials today. I completed my vocab flashcards (see previous post) and began to work on my Adobe Illustrator Live Trace tutorial (screencap linked in this post). Then I got the chance to talk to Kathy and Anna about the workflow for the Russian 407 Illustrations. I’m looking forward to working under that style and hopefully making some pretty and engaging illustrations!