From the course: Creating a Finished Character Animation in Blender

Create a video for your reference - Blender Tutorial

From the course: Creating a Finished Character Animation in Blender

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Create a video for your reference

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- Video reference is paramount to character animation. It allows us to explore and improvise acting choices quickly for your scene. I recommend using a simple camera, like a smart phone, and having the dialogue loop while you act out your scene. Don't forget to turn on the lights too. You don't want to capture a dark and blurry video. Now, as we listen to the dialogue, try to come up with some subtext, or meaning, behind the words. Answer questions like, "Where is he right now?", "Why is he there?", and "What was he doing right before this scene began?" Let's listen in. - [Voiceover] You wouldn't last one day. - [Voiceover] Dude, I service society by rocking. Okay? I'm out there on the front lines, liberating people with my music. Rockin' ain't no walk in the park, lady. - Note how upset he gets in the beginning. Listen to his word choices. He uses words like "liberating." He's just not playing music for people. He is literally liberating them with his music. Pay attention to his acting center. An acting center is kind of where your center of energy is while you're delivering the lines. If you were a really sad person, your acting center would be very low. If you're very excited, your acting center would be much higher, maybe even a little in front of you. This is kind of our way of projecting our energy while acting. Now listen to the line a little bit more, and you'll notice that he gets upset, and then he throws his acting center, he throws his energy, towards the viewer right towards the end. Now, let's think a little bit about subtext. I'm going to imagine that our character, Arthur, is an office worker, and he's working at the office when he is suddenly confronted by somebody else. Now, let's listen in one more time, and I will act out some choices for you. - [Voiceover] You wouldn't last one day. - [Voiceover] Dude, I service society by rocking. Okay? I'm out there on the front lines, liberating people with my music. Rockin' ain't no walk in the park, lady. - [Voiceover] Dude, I service society by rocking. Okay? I'm out there on the front lines, liberating people with my music. Rockin' ain't no walk in the park, lady. - The goal of this chapter is to make you feel comfortable with the strange, yet much needed task, of acting in front of a camera. Remember, we're not trying to win an award here. We're just trying to explore moments to use in our character animation scene.

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