John’s Journey: From Character to Story

This blog began as documentation for the Character Ageing project in my 3D Animation Pipeline module, but has evolved into the full production diary for my MSc thesis animation, “John’s Journey”.

The project follows John across five decades – from his 30s through to his 90s – exploring identity persistence through dementia. What started as a technical exercise in character ageing has become a deeply personal animation about my father, using his Institute of Advanced Motorists badge as a visual metaphor for the identity that endures even as abilities fade.

This blog tracks the entire production process: character development, rigging, modelling, animation, and all the problem-solving in between. It’s part technical diary, part reflection – documenting not just what I’m making, but how and why.

The work below is for the Procedural Content Generation module of my MSc, and explores the use of Geometry Nodes and Shader Nodes in Blender.