Wednesday 8 March 2017

MAF 2016: Masterclass - Blue Zoo Hoodoo

During my second day at MAF I attended a masterclass by Blue Zoo, an animation company based in London that specialises in 3D animation but also dabbles in 2D as well, their most recent 2D animation on their website being their short for Dynamo's "Seeing is Believing" tour in August 2016.

Dynamo's Seeing is Believing Tour 2016

However, the talk I attended was all about their new VR game, Hoodoo. The talk focused on the concept behind the animation and how they went about designing the characters and the environment for the virtual world they intended it for. I was particularly interested in hearing about how they kept the story simple in order to allow a viewer to explore the world without missing vital parts of the story and how they ensured the viewer obtained the relevant information they needed to understand the story. As my Extended Practice will be focused on creating an engaging narrative, I wanted to use this talk as an opportunity to gain some inspiration before I started to lock in my narrative.


They kept the story quite simple, having a few key elements that happened in order to make the story progress that they encouraged a viewer to focus on by leading the story that way whilst giving the viewer the freedom to look around and explore the environment. However, in order to stop the viewer from branching off down numerous different story lines, the developers kept the world relatively small with only a few areas to explore. Considering this is only a 15 minute game so far, I felt that there was so much to see and experience in such a small space. Unfortunately I couldn't have a go on the headset before the talk, as it would have made me feel really sick. Nonetheless, I found this to be extremely interesting and it is something I think I will keep my eye on, as although I am not a 3D animator, I find the idea of Virtual Reality to be quite interesting and I believe it is becoming more popular within the world of animation. 

They then went on to talk about how they made the short and how it took them quite a few years to get to this point, which isn't surprising. It was however interesting to hear how everything started from 2D concepts. Although I am not a designer of any sort, it's nice to know that 2D elements are still needed to make a 3D animation. 

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