Today’s digital student spends a staggering 9 hours each day using media technology. Video, music, gaming, and social media activities permeate every facet of our students’ lives, acting as the dominant conduit between parents, teachers, and peers. Specifically, the popularity of gaming in today’s digital world is evident in newly released statistics (SuperData Research) that reveal a 2017 gaming sales revenue of over 91 billion dollars worldwide. With the proliferation of mobile devices and improved network access, gameplay has become a portable activity that supports and encourages collaborative engagement in vast, global communities.
In recent years, major corporations and organizations have incorporated gamification into the design of their professional development programs to educate and motivate employees. Educators, too, have implemented pedagogical strategies to harness positive gaming attributes into educational activities where students can practice and master content and digital media literacy skills. Gaming requires intense focus, perseverance, analysis, and creative thinking – important higher-order thinking skills that can encourage student-led thinking and change the classroom dynamic into a space of active learning.
A key component to game development is the creation of a character with well-defined traits and realistic personality. By identifying with a character, gamers internalize challenges presented in the game and empathize with the character’s movement toward resolution. Adobe Fuse, part of the Creative Cloud suite, enables users to create unique 3D characters with full control over body parts, dress, and accessories. Fuse offers multiple character types, options for coloring and texturing, and a vast inventory of clothing. Within minutes, a user can easily create, animate, and download a character for future use in graphic design, film, or game development. Watch this video tutorial to learn how to:
- Create a unique 3D character in Adobe Fuse.
- Customize the character’s appearance.
- Add custom textures to the character’s clothing.
- Send the character to Mixamo to auto-rig animation.
- Download the 3D character in a game engine format.
If games are well designed and mediated, the benefits to positively impacting learning are plentiful – active learning, collaboration and social interaction, communication and cooperation, increased confidence and self-esteem, independent learning, and problem solving. Multi-sensory stimulation, differentiation, and feedback are automatically triggered as students navigate through various levels of play and engage with the content. With the appropriate instructional and assessment strategies, educators can design and/or utilize games that enhance student learning, build student autonomy, and develop important 21st century skills such as resilience, collaboration, and creativity.
Written by Kate Lee, Smith College Senior Media Producer