The Story The story behind the performance in this animation is that in todays society people are finding it header to see the different in what is real and what isn’t. At the start of the animation a human looking figure dances along to a music track, but as the dance progresses the human like figures skin begins to dreak away to reveal an inner robotic figure. This is supposed to represent how technology is advancing so mush that some people have to look twice before reslising that something isn’t real and its just been made up by machines. The Reason Behind The Animation The reason why I decided to make an animation about the rise in technology and how people can be fooled by mechanics is because it meant that I could experiment with using motion capture for the performance. The main reason and focuse for this project was that I wanted to gain more skills with motion capture softwares and 3d animation alongside developing my vfx abilities. The animation will involve me capturing a dance performance, gathering the data from that, to then placing it onto two characters that I’ve built in a 3D software called Maya. After which I will emit particles from the character revealing the hiddern other character underneath while the characters are still dancing.
Character Designs
With the characters I wanted to keep the designs simple enough so that when it comes to modelling them in 3D it makes the process move faster and build easier. I decided to dress the girl up in a leotard because of its tight fit, so that I could exaggerate the human form a bit more.
I had two different design ideas for the robot character. The first design has sphere joints for better rotation and smoother movements, however modelling this and getting the joints to move in the way in which I’d like them to might be quite hard to pull off.
For the socond robot design I changed the joints so that they are made out of flexible piping, which will be easier to model, and I’ve also placed a black visor on the head to make it look more modern and technical. I feel like this design might be the design I use for the final project.
Background Designs
As for the background design I sketched out a rough idea above and wanted it to look like a tipical studio. But from the 3D model you can see below it looks more like a warehouse, which I like and I can add more detail to make the environment look run down and old so that it will contrast with the characters and make then stand out more.
3D Models of The Girl Character
Concept Artwork
Art Book Designed By James Beardsell