Character and Narrative

Our first brief this year is Character and Narrative, a module that gives us the opportunity to learn 3D applications and explore deeper into performance and telling a story using the characters' expressions and body language.

I am very excited to use Maya and try out 3D tools, although since we are concentrating on animating, the brief will not provide us with as big an opportunity to learn modeling and rigging skills as I would like. I aim to still learn these skills alongside the brief so that in the future I can create this sort of performance with my own characters.

The brief requires us to chooses some lyrics to use as a basis for our narrative and then animate around that, recording our own voices to lip sync with the character. This will be fun to learn, but I am not looking forwards to having to use my own voice for the project. I will have to think carefully about the lyrics and see what I can make a story out of, and just deal with the recording after that decision is made.

Expressions, body language and lip syncing will be very important for this performance, but the characters also needs a proper to interact with/alongside. I hope that I can also make a decent environment for the character to help set the scene a little bit more.

All in all, I am excited for this project as an opportunity to learn more 3D skills so that I can explore the further with other aspects of animation that I want to concentrate on later in the year.