Character Basics
To start the narrative unit off, we started animating the characters we made in the previous unit. We did the basics: a walk and run cycle, and then jumping. I had a lot of fun animating by hand, and wanted to add a little bit of personality to my character. I think I did a pretty good job at conveying that he’s a dainty guy.
Lip Sync
Similarly to Junior year, everyone got to choose an audio to make a lip sync to! This was probably my favourite assignment so far in class. We used blend shapes in maya to make the mesh move without a rig. I added teeth in later because I thought an empty head looked a little bit strange. Surprisingly easy! Highly recommend, I think it looks a lot better, and it doesn’t take much.
I chose the audio because I really like Christmas Carols. Whenever I have a choice in music in any of my assignments I love Christmas music. I didn’t do it for last year’s lip sync, which I kind of regret, but I needed something for my portfolio.
Narrative Collaboration
I struggled a lot with this one. I was expecting a more linear timeline like last year’s narrative, but this was a lot different. It didn’t come together right up until we rendered it (so like 3 weeks in).
Somehow I’m surprised at every major assignment we do in animation because I expect to have more time, or I expect things to take less time than they actually do.