Monday, 11 October 2010
More Inspiration
Trying to get every bit of inspiration I can find... the start of visual research will help with environment and character development ideas.. as well as looking line, shape, and tone... also looking at different styles.
Sunday, 10 October 2010
More Research on emotional states: project Puppet
I'm investigating more research on emotional engagment and virtual interactivity... I found this particularly interesting... (portion of text from "Integrating Models of Personality and Emotions into Lifelike Characters")
(Elisabeth André, Martin Klesen, Patrick Gebhard, Steve Allen, and Thomas Rist)
The Role of Affect in Puppet
The objective of the Puppet project is to develop and investigate the value of a new virtual reality environment, the Virtual Puppet Theatre, (VPT), based on a theoretical framework of “learning through externalisation” [24]. Deploying user-controlled avatars and synthetic characters in the child’s own play production, the children have to distinguish and master multiple roles in their interaction with the system, e.g. that of a director, an actor and an audience with the main activities producing, enacting and reflecting respectively. Within this process the children should gain a basic understanding on how different emotional states can change or modify a character’s behaviour and how physical and verbal actions in social interaction can induce emotions in others. These emotional intelligence skills are important for us with respect to the early learning goals: “social role decentring” and theory of mind. Our approach is similar to [10] which allows children to direct a puppet’s mood, actions
4 Integrating Models of Personality and Emotions into Lifelike Characters
and utterances in interactive story-making and to [15] where children may induce some changes in their characters emotional state besides selecting a character’s actions.
Application Domain
For our first prototype (VPT1) developed for children at the age of 5-6, we decided to model a farmyard as a co-habited virtual world, in which the child’s avatar (e.g. the farmer) and a set of synthetic characters (pigs, cows, etc.) can interact with each other. Our characters are designed to exhibit both physical and verbal behaviour. We do not try to model “real” animals but make them more cartoon-like instead.
Fig. 1. 3D Prototype of the farmyard scenario.
For the communication between the avatar and a character we will use a simple speech-act based dialogue model and a set of pre-recorded utterances. The agents are equipped with virtual sensors and effectors which connect them to the 3D virtual environment and controlled by an agent architecture that integrates deliberative (goal-driven) and reactive (data-driven) planning. To foster the above mentioned emotional skills we provide two distinct sets of interfaces which can be used by the child to control a character’s behaviour. A body control interface which gives full control over the movement of the selected character and a mind control interface which allows to change the character’s emotional state thus biasing the behaviour in some direction without specifying the actual motion pattern. The mind control interface is icon-based with prototypical facial expressions for the modelled emotion types.
(Elisabeth André, Martin Klesen, Patrick Gebhard, Steve Allen, and Thomas Rist)
The Role of Affect in Puppet
The objective of the Puppet project is to develop and investigate the value of a new virtual reality environment, the Virtual Puppet Theatre, (VPT), based on a theoretical framework of “learning through externalisation” [24]. Deploying user-controlled avatars and synthetic characters in the child’s own play production, the children have to distinguish and master multiple roles in their interaction with the system, e.g. that of a director, an actor and an audience with the main activities producing, enacting and reflecting respectively. Within this process the children should gain a basic understanding on how different emotional states can change or modify a character’s behaviour and how physical and verbal actions in social interaction can induce emotions in others. These emotional intelligence skills are important for us with respect to the early learning goals: “social role decentring” and theory of mind. Our approach is similar to [10] which allows children to direct a puppet’s mood, actions
4 Integrating Models of Personality and Emotions into Lifelike Characters
and utterances in interactive story-making and to [15] where children may induce some changes in their characters emotional state besides selecting a character’s actions.
Application Domain
For our first prototype (VPT1) developed for children at the age of 5-6, we decided to model a farmyard as a co-habited virtual world, in which the child’s avatar (e.g. the farmer) and a set of synthetic characters (pigs, cows, etc.) can interact with each other. Our characters are designed to exhibit both physical and verbal behaviour. We do not try to model “real” animals but make them more cartoon-like instead.
Fig. 1. 3D Prototype of the farmyard scenario.
For the communication between the avatar and a character we will use a simple speech-act based dialogue model and a set of pre-recorded utterances. The agents are equipped with virtual sensors and effectors which connect them to the 3D virtual environment and controlled by an agent architecture that integrates deliberative (goal-driven) and reactive (data-driven) planning. To foster the above mentioned emotional skills we provide two distinct sets of interfaces which can be used by the child to control a character’s behaviour. A body control interface which gives full control over the movement of the selected character and a mind control interface which allows to change the character’s emotional state thus biasing the behaviour in some direction without specifying the actual motion pattern. The mind control interface is icon-based with prototypical facial expressions for the modelled emotion types.
Saturday, 9 October 2010
Pitch Week
Considering everything I have gathered so far, I now have to structure this into a pitch.
The only thing I'm not yet sure of is whether to experiment with producing a short piece of 3D stereo animation, or a normal 3d animation with simple interaction.. I may decide to pitch considering both options, and decide from feedback..
I'm thinking that while I start to develop what I have in my head through my sketchbook.. this may help me get past deciding which path to choose. :D
- To do list for pitch
-Structure my project into a powerpoint presentation
-Start sketchbook work/inspiration/research/visual research/initial development
The only thing I'm not yet sure of is whether to experiment with producing a short piece of 3D stereo animation, or a normal 3d animation with simple interaction.. I may decide to pitch considering both options, and decide from feedback..
I'm thinking that while I start to develop what I have in my head through my sketchbook.. this may help me get past deciding which path to choose. :D
- To do list for pitch
-Structure my project into a powerpoint presentation
-Start sketchbook work/inspiration/research/visual research/initial development
Thursday, 7 October 2010
another example of a powerful advertisement message
This is a very powerful advertisement message on child abuse... mixing virtual emotion with reality... this gives me more things to think about regarding emotional response.
NSPCC 'Cartoon' from Passion Pictures on Vimeo.
Project Natal
Project Natal(x-box Kinect) is something that goes some way to explaining what I want to explore within my honours project. (see videos on right) It allows you to control avatars but in a much deeper level than the wii or the new ps3 motion contoller.
This technology is wireless.. it recognizes sound... can interact with you... and you with it... just imagine.. being able to fully interact with your character... having a conversation with it! emotions being transfered.. Can you imagine what this could bring in terms of advertising messages... could you really program a character to interact with you talking about experiences of bullying... you could talk to avatars about your problems.. and actually get an answer back? the mind boggles!! :D
I'm going to futher investigate this... should this be an avenue to pursue with my animation? a proof of concept which could potentialy be used within a technology that already works.. and is about to be released on the X-box 360. (release date 11th november)
"The Project Natal experience is designed to generate
emotional responses that echo the feelings Project Natal
itself evokes. Experiencing a sense of connection and
togetherness, members of the audience will be whisked
away on a journey that is intense, engrossing, human-
centered, interactive, imaginative and socially inclusive.”
-- Michel Laprise, Creative Director
This technology is wireless.. it recognizes sound... can interact with you... and you with it... just imagine.. being able to fully interact with your character... having a conversation with it! emotions being transfered.. Can you imagine what this could bring in terms of advertising messages... could you really program a character to interact with you talking about experiences of bullying... you could talk to avatars about your problems.. and actually get an answer back? the mind boggles!! :D
I'm going to futher investigate this... should this be an avenue to pursue with my animation? a proof of concept which could potentialy be used within a technology that already works.. and is about to be released on the X-box 360. (release date 11th november)
"The Project Natal experience is designed to generate
emotional responses that echo the feelings Project Natal
itself evokes. Experiencing a sense of connection and
togetherness, members of the audience will be whisked
away on a journey that is intense, engrossing, human-
centered, interactive, imaginative and socially inclusive.”
-- Michel Laprise, Creative Director
Wednesday, 6 October 2010
Feedback1
I found Jims tutorial today very useful, I explained my idea, and my research question, and the feedback I got about thinking how I plan to user test it, is something I can now think about and explore further. My further refined research question is: (which I will stick with for the time being)
- Can interaction and virtual reality technology enhance the emotional response within advertisement messages?
Project Aim:
To gather the research within interactive and virtual reality technology which will result in a simple prototype where you can control whether you want to explore the side of either the Victim or the Bully.
The Purpose:
To develop a new way of advertising anti bullying; enhancing the emotional response.
How?
Researching into the bigger vision of my idea by exploring emotional engagment between the character and the user by means of virtual reality... could the user actualy feel the pain of being the Victim through the characters emotion. My output of a 3D animation prototype will only scratch the surface of my research findings.
I have now started getting my visual research together for tomorrows tutorial... all of it being inspirational to help me form ideas. Now that I'm starting to feel a bit better, I will get my sketchbook started at the weekend. However much I wanted to jump right into the development of my animation, I feel I must make sure I have a clear plan of action, and the makings of a good research question, which I feel I now have.
I will see what feedback I get from my pitch next week.
- Can interaction and virtual reality technology enhance the emotional response within advertisement messages?
Project Aim:
To gather the research within interactive and virtual reality technology which will result in a simple prototype where you can control whether you want to explore the side of either the Victim or the Bully.
The Purpose:
To develop a new way of advertising anti bullying; enhancing the emotional response.
How?
Researching into the bigger vision of my idea by exploring emotional engagment between the character and the user by means of virtual reality... could the user actualy feel the pain of being the Victim through the characters emotion. My output of a 3D animation prototype will only scratch the surface of my research findings.
I have now started getting my visual research together for tomorrows tutorial... all of it being inspirational to help me form ideas. Now that I'm starting to feel a bit better, I will get my sketchbook started at the weekend. However much I wanted to jump right into the development of my animation, I feel I must make sure I have a clear plan of action, and the makings of a good research question, which I feel I now have.
I will see what feedback I get from my pitch next week.
Monday, 4 October 2010
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