Class 1 - Week 1 - AM 101

• Check out all the stuff on Animation Mentor
  AM is filled to the brim with amazing videos and articles that will help
  answer most of the questions you might have early on. Make sure you
  go through all the items in the library and check back each week to
  see if anything new has been added.

• Clear your browser cache weekly
  While not always necessary, I have found that at times new items won't
  show up on the AM site until I have cleared the cache. Now I make a
  habit of doing it weekly so that I don't miss the new rigs or videos.
  Here's a link on how to clear the cache for most of the current browsers.
  Wikihow - Clearing your Browser Cache

• Get to know your fellow students
  Animation Mentor is not just a place to learn about animation. It's also a
  great community of people who all love the same thing; animating.
  So take this opportunity to get to know your fellow students. Most
  will be a wealth of knowledge and make your time in AM even more
  spectacular. It's also a great idea to try to comment on people's
  work as much as possible. Not only will it help them out and give
  them a reason to comment back on your work, it will also help you
  train your own skills by analyzing other people's work.
  
• Visit and subscribe to the AM Community Center
  This forum is a great place to get news and tips for all sorts of things related to animation. It's also where you can find out where and when extra hangouts & Q&As are going on. These extra hangouts are an invaluable part of the AM experience where you can get to know people, have your work reviewed, and learn all sort of cool tips and tricks. To make it easier to keep up to date with  whatever hangouts are going on, go to the "Community Hangout and Gatherings" page of the Community Center and hit the "Follow" button at the top right. That will allow you to get email notifications whenever a new hangout is posted.

• Ask your mentor what they want to see in the assignments
  Each mentor is different and will want to see different things in the your
  assignments. For example, my Class 2 mentor wanted to see a little
  personality in the characters we were animating, whereas Cameron's
  mentor only wanted to see the principles of the assignment, with no
  personality added. Asking what the mentor wanted to see beforehand
  kept us from going overboard with the assignments and also gave the
  mentor more time to critique our work where it needed it since we were
  already on the right track.

• Take notes
  Don't just take a few notes in classes. Take a ton of notes! In class,
  while reading a book, even while going out. (but preferably not when
  driving. Notes are extremely helpful ways of remembering information.
  Just the simple fact of writing something down seems to make it easier
  to remember things. They are also a great way to keep track of what
  you have to do next in an assignment.
  
  Instead of keeping all the things you have to do in your head, I find
  that writing them down then figuring out which ones I need to do first
  and numbering them keeps me from bouncing between ideas and
  helps to increase my productivity.

• Try to get something uploaded early
  Probably the hardest tip to follow. (I still have trouble with it)
  Getting things up early will of immense help. Not only will it allow more
  time for people to comment on your work, it will also help keep the
  stress down to a minimum when the deadline comes rolling along.
  
  And don't worry if the work isn't perfect or not quite finished. The whole
  point of getting critiques is to get other people's opinions and hope
  they'll see something you missed. Waiting until the last minute before
  uploading while trying to make the scene perfect will only make it harder
  if someone notices something that needs to be changed.

• Don't be afraid to ask for help
  AM is a wonderful community filled will people who want to help out. If
  ever something is giving you problems or things just don't seem to
  work, don't be afraid to ask someone for help, from your mentor, a
  fellow student, writing in the forums, or by sending in a support
  ticket. And don't worry if you feel your question is too simple or
  basic. Almost every student has asked those same questions at one
  point or another, and will gladly share the knowledge that was shared
  with them.

• Keep it simple
  This is probably the most important tip. And also one of the hardest to
  follow. Almost everybody wants to flex their creative talents and try to
  do something original, but that only hinders your learning . You'll have
  plenty of time to get creative in the later classes.
  
  For now it's better to focus on learning the principles of animation and
  doing each assignment as best as you can. If the assignment asks for
  a ball bounce, instead of having a ball bounce into the scene, then
  hit a line of dominoes, activating a Rube Goldberg machine that
  writes out "AM Rocks!", just focus on making the ball bounce as
  convincingly as possible. If the assignment asks for the ball to be
  a basket ball, use the extra time you save by keeping it simple to
  study and research just how exactly a basket ball bounces. How much
  energy does it lose in each bounce? How long does it dribble? How far
  does it roll? These things will help make your work shine.
  
  This also applies for rendering. You don't need to make the ball
  photo realistic. In many cases, that actually makes it harder for
  people to focus on the animation and give useful feedback.
  
  You could also use the extra time you save to do the assignment over
  again. It's amazing how much you can learn just by repeating the same
  assignment over and trying different techniques.

I hope that this has been helpful and that you have a fantastic term,
learn lots of cool things, and make tons of new friends. It's going to be
an amazing adventure!