My name is Jennifer O’Connor, and I am President of 4D Artists, Inc, a design and visualization firm in the suburbs of Northern Illinois. I am also Adjunct Faculty at the College of Lake County, teaching 3ds Max Level 1 and 2, and Architectural Illustration using 3ds Max. I’m also President of the Autodesk Animation User’s Group Association of Northern Illinois/Chicago.
My formal education is in the field of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science via the Milwaukee School of Engineering, but my first love is 3d computer graphics and animation for which I am self-taught. My first career was at Great America theme park, where I worked my way up to Electronics Supervisor. My team and I were responsible for the electronic and electro/mechanical systems on all of the rides, games and shows, to name a few things. We did everything from turnkey control systems for roller coasters, to designing environmental control systems for greenhouses, to designing and building games of skill, to creating animatronics for the Halloween events in the fall.
At the College of Lake County I started teaching AutoCAD in 1996, and then started teaching the (then) new course in 3ds Max. I was tasked with producing the course content and lectures from scratch, and we are still using most of my custom labs and lectures, which have evolved greatly since the first semester. A couple years later we added a Level 2 course, which runs in the fall semester. Several years ago we added Architectural Illustration to my class load when they switched from hand-renderings to a completely software-based approach. That class runs in even Spring semesters.
Starting in January 2009 we expect to start a new Revit class at the college, and I will most likely be teaching this new class. This may replace the Architectural Illustration class for my workload, and increase the architectural focus of my level 1 and 2 courses in 3ds Max – a process I’ve already started.
In the spring of 2007 I started an official Autodesk Animation User’s Group Association (AAUGA) for Northern Illinois and Chicago. The group covers 3ds Max, Maya and Motion Builder software. We meet in downtown Chicago and in the Suburbs, and the official site for the group is www.max3ds.com if you would like more information.
For the group I coordinate meetings and schedule locations, get speakers and also I prepare and present content for presentations. I produce and deliver many of the presentations, and much of my primary focus is on the mental ray and ART VPS Shaderlight software (www.mentalimages.com and www.artvps.com).