Character Emotion

Gemz888

My names Gemma Pullinger, and I'm currently working on my 4th years honours project within computer arts. I'm looking into character emotion, and how to get the best emotional response from characters within narrative; I'm reading through a good book called Stop Staring... and looks like its going to be a huge help for my project. I will keep you posted on how I progress.. but I feel that acting for animaters is the very key to releasing emotion... which also helps to keep characters look realistic within a virtual environemnt. All the disney character many of us have grown with over the years all had characteristics that made them unique and I think you could only imagine the acting reference they went through, to get to the final character animation. Do you think that the priciples of 2D animation are lacking within 3D animation? and why do you think this is?

Emperors Teeth

I use that book too, but mostly for facial topology. It's good book though.

Here's a question for you: Are you talking about narrative as seen in any movie or cutscene in a game? Or. Are you talking about narrative with regard to interactive games & characters? If it is the latter, then you must also think about how the characters are to respond differently based upon the input of the user as well as other virtual characters in the scene.

IEatApples

Im going to assume your Abertay? My best advice would be to read through some previous years dissertations as this is quite a common topic. See what kind of books other people have used in their references and try and put your own twist on the question.

Rick Stirling

One of the Pixar guys has a great facial animation tutorial as part of the Animation Mentor course.

oXYnary

Get it. Love it.

[ame]http://www.amazon.com/Artists-Complete-Guide-Facial-Expression/dp/0823016285[/ame]

Gemz888

Thanks for the feedback.... My research question is; While investigating virtual reality technology, animation, games, and narrative;

'What are the effective translation processes that portray character emotion within narrative for advertisement messages?'

to give you an idea of my project process... here are my aims and objectives I have so far...

1. Aim: To research all appropriate formats for my project;

objective: Investigate existing and future technologies that would enhance the emotional response.

2. Aim: To determine what facial and body rigs to use for my characters;

Objective: Investigate all resources available to me.

3. Aim: Investigate various Styles that would be suitable for my characters appropriate to my chosen genre/theme;

Objective: Explore historical and contemporary influences which will help form ideas.


4. Aim: Produce a script that will help to communicate the characters emotions;

Objective: Investigate Narration and Narrative within existing animation and advertisement messages.

5. Aim: Investigate advertisement messages and relevent literature that support how to get the best emotional response from my characters;

Objective: Research into past and current advertisement messages along with game and animation focusing on character emotion.


6. Aim: Produce a 3-4 min 3D animation which focuses on character emotion and narrated narrative;

Objective: Using all my inspiration, research, concept development, and animatic to produce a finished piece of animation.

My main Project aim:

To produce a 3D animation which will focus on character emotion within an advertisement message... Are YOU a BULLY?

Purpose: to explore character emotions within an anti-bullying campaign.

I am studying at Abertay... I am currently looking at existing project proposals which will also help me with structuring my own... I will start to draft up my dissertation at the start of next year... but thanks for the advice. And will keep a look out for the tutorial and books mentioned.

jipe

Just FYI, 3-4 minutes is very, very long for a student project. Especially because you're considering advertising, I would go with one piece that can be edited from 60 to 30 to 15 seconds, which is pretty standard broadcast length for commercials. It will still be an immense amount of work, but not so long that you'll never finish or have to settle for poor quality.

Gemz888

Thanks for the feedback... I think I will have to cut it down, I have been working on a script that is about a min in length... I'm trying to consider creating a good quality output, but also thinking about the narrative running through it within the advertisement message, I'm hoping to get started animating at the start of January... will post up screenshots of character ideas etc as I progress.

samgriffiths

Gemz888 wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback.... My research question is; While investigating virtual reality technology, animation, games, and narrative;

'What are the effective translation processes that portray character emotion within narrative for advertisement messages?'

to give you an idea of my project process... here are my aims and objectives I have so far...

1. Aim: To research all appropriate formats for my project;

objective: Investigate existing and future technologies that would enhance the emotional response.

2. Aim: To determine what facial and body rigs to use for my characters;

Objective: Investigate all resources available to me.

3. Aim: Investigate various Styles that would be suitable for my characters appropriate to my chosen genre/theme;

Objective: Explore historical and contemporary influences which will help form ideas.


4. Aim: Produce a script that will help to communicate the characters emotions;

Objective: Investigate Narration and Narrative within existing animation and advertisement messages.

5. Aim: Investigate advertisement messages and relevent literature that support how to get the best emotional response from my characters;

Objective: Research into past and current advertisement messages along with game and animation focusing on character emotion.


6. Aim: Produce a 3-4 min 3D animation which focuses on character emotion and narrated narrative;

Objective: Using all my inspiration, research, concept development, and animatic to produce a finished piece of animation.

My main Project aim:

To produce a 3D animation which will focus on character emotion within an advertisement message... Are YOU a BULLY?

Purpose: to explore character emotions within an anti-bullying campaign.

I am studying at Abertay... I am currently looking at existing project proposals which will also help me with structuring my own... I will start to draft up my dissertation at the start of next year... but thanks for the advice. And will keep a look out for the tutorial and books mentioned.

I'm at abertay computer arts too, to answer the first question as to whether the principles are lacking within 3D, I would say that I believe exaggeration is the main one lacking, I havn't seen many 3D animations with the massive exaggerated movements that I have witnessed within 2D.
Also - alot of 3D animations I see are usually quite slow and not as fast and polished as 2D animations.

Good luck with this assignment, be sure to post up everything you have in the the previews section and we'll make sure you get some good feedback on how to improve it.

Looking forward to it.

Gemz888

:DD what year are you in? I think what your saying is very true.. 3D is a continuing passion of mine, but would love to try and bring back the element of fast flowing narrative, and exagerated movement... some of my visual research has been looking at character design which support exagerated features which I also think could be interesting...

Gemz888

"How do animators generate empathetic character performances, and how might these performances be used to convey an anti-bullying message?"

http://www.gemzhonoursproject.blogspot.com

Any feedback would be great towards my dissertation research, and you will of course get a reference in my dissertation.

Thanks
Gemma