Narrative Visual Perspective in Animation
Introduction
The goal of the Narrative Unit in Animation was to create a character design, and then translate it into a 3D model using Maya, Zbrush, and Substance Painter. From there, we would animate these characters in several ways (lip sync, basic run/walk/jump, etc). Eventually, would collaborate in small groups to create a short narrative animation based on the skills we learned in these three programs.
Character Bio
I like how this model came out for the most part. I wish I could have molded her dress separately so that creating things like the ruffles would have been easier. I also would have liked to add the sleeves and accessories I originally included in her design.
Test Animations
Creating these three animations was quite a horrible task. I didn’t find that I had enough time to finish these in class, so I did some of them on my really laggy home computer. It worked! (surprisingly…) I did the run and the jump at home and completed the walk in class following Mr. Cho’s tutorial. Personally, I found it easier to observe the motion, then try to copy it, rather than being taken through a step-by-step tutorial (I think that just confused me more). I didn’t mind animating in Maya too much, but I generally felt like I wasn’t able to express maybe as well (artistically) in this medium of animation.
Mocap was not too difficult actually, I didn’t have to do a lot of fixing as my rig and the motion data aligned decently well. I had to repaint the hands on my rig (tell the hand bone which parts of the model belong to the hand bone) and move the keyframes on the arm a bit.
I had a lot of fun with this one. In honor of my previous lip sync project, I used another SpongeBob clip. I enjoyed adding facial expressions and subtle motion to elevate the lip sync, as well as messing around with camera angles.
Final Narrative Animation
Tada! We finally make it. My team was definitely at a disadvantage here, as we only had three people while the other groups had four. Jack is a super fast worker though, so I think that made up for it. Generally, I think I’m proud of how this came out. I know this medium is not my strongest, but I think we did the very best with the tools we had, and it shows through. This isn’t my usual brand of humor, but I think we executed it pretty tastefully. Editing was a nightmare… sorry for not realizing I had turned off the visibility on all the layers Mr. Flo!