Christopher Maraffi
About
Chris 'Topher' Maraffi
MFA, MSc, University of California Santa Cruz
Email: cmaraffi@fau.edu
Office: LA 412, Davie Campus
Areas of Expertise: Pre-Production and Virtual Production, Video Game Design and Development, 3D Animation and Motion Capture, and XR Experience Design.
Topher Maraffi teaches multimedia production courses in the Film, Video, and New Media (FVNM) BA program on FAU Davie campus, as well as graduate courses in the Media, Technology, and Entertainment (MTEn) MFA program. He has a Master of Fine Arts in Digital Arts & New Media and a Masters of Computer Science from University of California Santa Cruz. In his undergraduate production courses you will learn the latest emerging technologies for games, extended reality (XR), and virtual production, and many are cross-listed with graduate courses so that undergraduates can work with graduates on research projects. His research projects are at the intersection of the Arts, Humanities, and Sciences, and explore how to use XR technology like virtual reality and augmented reality to enhance experiential learning at museums and historical sites.
Professor Maraffi worked in television and independent film production in NYC, and taught at NYU-CADA, NYIT, Parsons New School, School of Visual Arts, Academy of Art, and Mesmer Animation Labs. He was also a Course Director of the technical animation courses at Full Sail University, and wrote several 3D animation books on Softimage and Maya that were on Disney Animation’s recommended reading list. He has taught workshops and masters classes at SIGGRAPH, Red Stick Animation Festival, and Animex, and presented research papers at EVA, AIIDE, ICIDS, FDG, and Digital Humanities conferences.
View selected projects and publications at https://tophermaraffi.com/2019/06/09/fau-mten-lab/
Courses
DIG 4122C (formerly FIL 4703): Visual Design for Film, Animation, and Games (Fall)*
DIG 6546: Preproduction, Prototyping, Previsualization (Fall)
DIG 3725C: 3D Video Game Design (Fall)*
DIG 6547: 3D Production for Interactivity (Fall)
DIG 3773C: Immersive Media for Games and Virtual Reality (Spring)*
DIG 6605C: Immersive XR Design (Spring)
DIG 3306C: Advanced 3D Computer Animation (Spring)
DIG 4713: Video Game Studies (Spring)
* Cross-listed with graduate course