Throughout the years many areas of development have sparked my interest and passion, most notably Narrative Design and Production. One other area has also fascinated me and for quite some time too! Roll back to 2005 where a franchise I have followed since its inception released its third main instalment. That game being Devil May Cry 3.
After completing the games story, I decided to take a deeper look at the behind the scenes on how the game was made. I have always known about motion/performance capture but seeing it in this medium really wowed me over. To think all these great performances, action sequences, voiceovers and more are brought together in such a way to enrich the games we play.
Fast forward to 2023, my interest got the better of me and I decided to upskill myself in performance capture. Learning the core fundamentals of performance capture and more has come through the world’s premiere performance capture school; Mocap Vaults.
It is here I have taken my first two lessons “Intro to Mocap” and “Heroes & Monsters 1” where I plan to get myself fully qualified and upskilled in this area of game design.
Level One – Intro to Mocap Acting: The absolute essential introduction to the world of performance capture. This lesson created a concrete foundation paving the way for future development. Areas covered included: Basic principles, concepts, terminology and performance styles required within this medium. We also looked at mocap from a business perspective before getting stuck in with lots of practical work. Now I had a solid understanding of what was to come, and it was all but confirmed I would be attending every lesson as soon as possible thereafter.
Level Two – Heroes & Monsters: A two class program that teaches the core skills when working on a performance capture shoot. Diving into a more in depth look at both character and environment creation. We built up our arsenal of imagination and observation, creating different characters both people and creatures as well as immersive environments. We focused on developing a sense of body awareness and specific physical performance skills required for performance capture. Within these two classes we learned how to construct a character move by move for working within video games.
Enter the Volume – Observer: I was invited to take part in observing the final stage of Mocap Vaults curriculum, how could I say no?
Two full days in a professional motion capture studio. This really highlighted to me the monumental effort that goes into creating a game. A fantastic experience where I met some really talented individuals who all shared the same passion as I did. On the day we had an amazing writer for film/games in Lin Coghlan, a very experienced animator in Ralph Palmer as well as the two dedicated directors John Dower and Paul-William Mawhinney.
As I continue my journey in Motion Capture I will continue to update this space!
Vella Narrative 