What 3D Graphics & Animation Students Learn at CU Denver

Not many people can say they achieved the career of their childhood dreams, but Noah Kentwortz is among the select few who can. Growing up in northern Colorado, Kentwortz always wanted to help make movies. He couldn’t afford a camera of his own, so he enacted the scenes he envisioned in the theater mode of his video games, which allows players to capture a screen recording of play sequences.

Now, he is a lighting and compositing artist for major productions like the TV show Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures. CU Denver’s 3D Graphics & Animation program is what bridged the gap between Kentwortz’s raw talent and passion and a real career in the industry that once felt out of reach.

3D Graphics & Animation students at CU Denver get training and experience that mimic what it’s like to work in the industry today. This means they graduate a cut above the rest, because they’ve had the opportunity to build both the hard and soft skills it takes to succeed on a real creative team. And, for Coloradans and students from Western Undergraduate Exchange states, CU Denver’s 3D Graphics & Animation program offers a comprehensive, quality pathway toward careers at a fraction of the cost of other art and design colleges.

Choosing CU Denver

By the time Kentwortz was in high school, he had already logged hours playing around with compositing, which is the art of combining digital elements into one seemingly unaltered video. “An example of that could be something like taking a CG [computer graphics] render of Iron Man and some footage of the sky and putting him in, adding some clouds in front of him, and making all the reflections correct to make it look like he really is in that scene,” he explained.

He knew he needed better technology and expert training to make movie magic worthy of the big screen, though. CU Denver’s Digital Animation Center (DAC), a name that is often used interchangeably with the 3D Graphics & Animation program, appealed to him because of its state-of-the-art facilities, instructors with film industry experience, and its high ranking—the top in the state, according to Animation Career Review.

Collaborative, Job-Ready Training

Kentwortz graduated in 2022 and is now an intermediate lighting and compositing artist at ICON Creative Studio in Vancouver, British Columbia. He draws on his CU Denver experience constantly. The opportunity to hone his skills on industry-standard technologies was critical (more on that below), but what really set him apart in the job market was the job-ready soft skills he gained in the program.

Staffed by instructors who are industry veterans, CU Denver’s 3D Graphics & Animation program prepares students to work collaboratively on projects as they will in the real world. “The highly collaborative, team-based approach mirrors what happens in the real world,” said Digital Animation Program Director and Senior Instructor Jeremy Brown. “We throw you on a team with a bunch of your peers and say, let’s actually make a film and learn how to work together, not just the button pushing, but also the interpersonal teamwork skills. That’s actually a huge part of what we do.”

Students are supported with a Production Practices course first, which teaches the practical skills computer graphics (CG) artists need to know, like project workflows, time management, and best practices for collaboration and communication on teams. When they’re ready to interview for jobs after graduation, they can point to real experiences they’ve had working on creative teams.

They also can speak to how they handle one of the most integral aspects of working in a creative industry: taking feedback as the pros at Pixar and DreamWorks do every working day. It’s built into all of their courses, so students get comfortable with the process. For Kentwortz, this was transformative. “As an 18-year-old kid, if somebody told me, ‘Oh, this is broken, this is wrong,’ I would be like, oh my god, I’m so bad at this,” Kentwortz said. “But, they really help to teach you how to accept that criticism and understand the difference between the work and the artist.”

That sets CU Denver students apart from the rest as hirable professionals. And for Kentwortz, it’s made a huge difference in his professional success. “Ninety percent of my job is people telling me that what I did is not good enough yet,” he said. “Learning how to take that is so important.”

The 3D Graphics & Animation Student Journey 

Students aren’t thrown straight into the deep end, though. It all starts with a foundational year. First-year 3D Graphics & Animation students at CU Denver gain a technical foundation by focusing on individual skill-building and artistic exploration. The classes students take in this period are called “pre-portfolio courses.” After completing them, they submit a portfolio that must “pass” in order to continue in the program. The vast majority of students pass the portfolio because the pre-portfolio courses prepare them for it. 

With access to powerful technologies and higher-level courses expanding what students can do, they’re encouraged to play around, figure out what they enjoy, and pick an area they want to focus on in their careers. For Kentwortz, for example, that was lighting and compositing. Brown explained that the program intentionally covers many sub-disciplines in 3D animation. “We let people specialize and we try and provide as much of that deep experience as possible, while also making sure that they graduate with broad experience,” Brown said. 

Next, students continue honing their skills until they’re ready to complete the capstone, a three-semester project for which they work in teams to create a three-to-five-minute film. By then, they’ve cultivated robust skills in their area of interest, understand the components their peers will contribute, and are ready to work as a team to complete the project. 

The People Make All the Difference 

The instructors who teach courses in each area of 3D animation are practiced, professional experts on that particular topic. That made a huge difference for Kentwortz. “My Side FX Houdini instructor was not just a professor; he’s living and breathing it,” Kentwortz said.

His peers were crucial to him, too. The computer lab that CU Denver 3D Graphics & Animation students get access to became a home away from home for Kentwortz. Not only could he practice on the state-of-the-art software, but he was also learning alongside his friends. The program provides lab monitors, who are paid student workers who hang out in the lab and help learners troubleshoot and answer their questions. It’s a small but mighty component of the program. For Kentwortz, it meant he always had the support he needed as a student. “It’s somebody who you can count on to be there and answer questions,” Kentwortz said. “They’ll come over, sit with you. They’re your go-to people.”

Eventually, Kentwortz was hired to be a lab monitor, himself. Not only was he able to help his peers by sharing the expertise he had amassed, but the role was constantly providing him with opportunities to keep honing his craft. “If I can teach it, I know it,” Kentwortz said. And most of all, it was meaningful to him. “I cannot overstate how important it was for my growth as an artist and as a person,” he said.

And that growth paid off. After graduating from CU Denver’s 3D Graphics & Animation program, Kentwortz is living his dream of making motion pictures as a digital artist. “It’s fun to go to work every day,” he said.