The narrative unit in Animation was all about learning how to use our existing models and skills to tell a story. We learned how to animate character acting, expressions, and more in order to create scenes that conveyed storytelling.
We started with making a character bio for the models we made in the last unit. Every story needs a good character, so we made sure to include a little bit about who our characters are.
Next, we animated walk, run, and jump cycles for our characters. To be entirely honest, I’m not super proud of the animations I created. They could be worse, sure, but I think with the practice I’ve had now and with the new rig I made, I think I could do better. Looking back, I’d fix the timing and make the movement more smooth and natural.
After that, we learned to add motion capture to our character models. This was a really easy process. With my character, though, a lot of motion capture doesn’t work because the torso is a lot wider than that of a human, so the arms usually clip through the body. If I were to go back, I’d choose a motion capture file where the arms are not close to the body.
We then learned how to do character lip sync. This was a skill that really came in handy later for the group narrative animation. This project was in the middle of crunch time for my ArtCenter college application, so I did not have time to do a very good job.
Last but definitely not least, we did the collaborative narrative animation. It was by far the most difficult assignment I’ve ever had to do for this class, and even Freestyle in general. It taught me a lot about time management, helping organize a group, and how I respond to crunch time stress. Given the time, experience level, and resources we had, I’m proud of the product we were able to put out.
[narrative animation is completed, but has not been posted on YouTube yet]
Since I plan to major in animation in college, taking Animation at Freestyle is a really important sneak peek to what I’ll be doing in college and beyond. Since I only had experience in 2D before this, this is an incredibly valuable experience for me. 3D animation is something that is not easily accessible and has a steep learning curve, so I’m happy I could get a head start at Freestyle.