Day 42: Movement and performance in animation

I have been looking into animating performance in movement for my next set of tests and these are notes on papers I have read relating to character performance and believability.

Below quotes from:
El-Nasr, M.S. et al. 2009. Believable characters. In: Furht, B., eds. Handbook of multimedia for digital entertainment and arts. Boston: Springer US. 2009. pp.497-528.
https://www.trinitylaban.ac.uk/sites/default/files/imports_2834

“Rudolf Laban is considered one of the most important movement theorists of the twentieth century and the founding father of modern dance in central Europe…. Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) is an open theory of movement that is applicable to any area of human movement investigation.” [57,58] (p.517)

“Another concept of importance is phrasing. Phrasing describes how we sequence and layer the components of movement over time. A movement phrase is analogous to a verbal sentence, or to a phrase of music, in which a complete idea or theme is represented. A phrase unit involves three main stages: Preparation, Action and Recuperation. Our uniqueness is expressed through our movement phrases: individualized rhythmic patterns and preferences of Body, Effort, Shape and Space.” [57] (p.518)

“Warren Lamb worked closely with Laban in the late 1940’s… [19] His interest in behavioral analysis led him to create a theoretical model and assessment technique called Movement Pattern Analysis (MPA), which relates decision-making to non-verbal behavioural styles.” (p.519)
[19] J.Hodgson, Mastering Movement: the life and work of Rudolf Laban: Routledge, 2001.
[57] P. Hackney, Making Connections: Total Body Integration Through Bartenieff Fundamentals:
Routledge, 2000.
[58] C. L. Moore, Beyond Words: Gordon and Breach, 1988.

I’ve been jumping in and out of Ed Hooks “Acting for Animators” so here are some other points I have been considering.

Seven Essential Acting Principles (p.11-12)
1. Thinking tends to lead to conclusions, and emotion tends to lead to action
2. We humans empathize only with emotion. Your job as a character animator is to create in the audience a sense of empathy with you character.
“The way this works is that they see what you character is doing, and then tune into the emotion that led to that particular action. In the dark street example, if an audience was watching you reach for your pepper spray, it would recognize that the way you are doing that is a result of fear. And the people in the audience will feel fear, too, because of empathy.” (p.14)
3. Theatrical reality is not the same a regular reality
4. Acting is doing; acting is also reacting.
“A character’s reaction has everything to do with that particulars character’s values… My point is that different people react in different ways.” (p.22)
5. Your character should play an action until something happens to make him play a different action
6. Scenes being in the middle, not at the beginning
7. A scene is a negotiation
//To me, 1, 2, 4 and 5 are the most applicable to what I am doing. If humans only respond to emotion, and actions are emotion-led, then one way to improve player engagement would be to add more emotion in to how a character completes actions. Acting is re-acting is what I’m stressing in my project.

Seven Basic Emotions
There are seven basic emotions that are universally recognized: (p.63)
Happiness
Sadness
Anger
Fear
Distrust
Surprise
Contempt (a feeling of superiority).

Videogames
1. Eyes
– “Eye contact is a status negotiation” (p.68)
2. Empathy
– “One of the requirements of empathy is distance. What that means is that a game player cannot empathize with a character he can control. Cut scenes work as they do primarily because, while watching one, the player cannot control the behaviour of his character.”
– “The way to evoke a more nuanced emotional response from the player is via “buddy” or “Companion” relationships. ICO was the first came I know about that featured such a character, the blind girl Yorda.” (p.70)

3. Humour
– “Games are chock full of deadly serious, angry characters.” (p.71)
4. Motion Capture
– “Motion Capture (mocap), which is used by many if not most game companies, is inherently flawed in terms of acting… Mocap makes everybody, actor included, think about movement too much. When you think about your movement, it automatically stiffens.” (p.72)
5. Credibility
– “The reason we see these kinds of unrealistic reactions in games is simply because honest and believable reactions take more time, and cost more money, to animate. The produces figure it is a game after all, so probably nobody will notice. This kind of reasoning will have to change en route to stronger performance. Character behaviour must reflect what real humans actually do…” (p.73)
6. Dialogue
– “Remember, acting has almost nothing to do with words.”
7. Male/female relationships
8. Can a videogame make a player cry?
– “Speaking as acting teacher, I have to say yes, of course it will eventually happen. When designers finally solve the empathy problem that is inherent in games, tears and all the other emotions will not be far behind. Empathy is key.”

Walt Stanchfield ‘Drawn to Life’ Volume 1
“It is utterly impossible for a person to do nothing.” (p.126)

Day 40: Performance in run cycles

After reading Sloan’s paper yesterday on ‘Agency in Animation’, one quote stuck out:
“Procedural animation is often employed within game play to ‘automate’ the actions of characters to a great extent, emphasizing lifelike adaptive movement more than performance.”

What I plan to do today is see if I can bring in some character performance to what are normal physical movements. Having spent a couple of days doing walk cycles, I want to try the next basic movement: running.

As its been a while since I last animated a run, I started with a generic run. For reference I used a run on 6’s from Richard William’s ‘The Animators Survival Kit’. However, once I exported it I realised it was far too fast for I wanted and looked more like a sprint than a run.

To help with the timing, I dug out my old copy of Skyward Sword and had a run around skyloft with Link. I discovered than running on 6’s is what Link does when he sprints, but his ‘normal’ run is a little slower. I played about with the timings and found that running on 8’s is closer to the speed I wanted. It looks more of a fast jog, but I think the slower timing makes the animation more readable, and give me the couple of extra frames to play with posing and overlapping.  Oh, I also realise there is a bit of  a weird pop in both cycles, to help with looping the cycles, I’ve now animated the camera to follow the character (as I want to keep forward translation so I can adjust the posing easier and not have slidey feet issues) but it’s not perfectly aligned hence the slight ‘pop’.
I know I said I wanted to bring in performance, but unfortunately this took a lot longer to do than I had thought (6hours instead of 2 because I spent ages experimenting with timing) so I’m going to use the above run as a base and over the next couple of days, I’m going to start animating variations.

 

Day 37: Agency

Below are quotes from papers I have read to do with agency. After talking with Brian yesterday, it came to light that this is one of the key things I am questioning and experimenting with is agency. Changing how the game character reacts and animates based on a pre-defined personality (or potentially on player input built personality, but this I can only theorise as I do not have the programming skills required to create this level of AI) could potentially improve or disrupt player agency, where agency is: “the satisfying power to take meaningful action and see the results of our decisions and choices.” (Hamlet on the holodeck p.126), and thus player immersion.

This is a new term, and theory for me, so it is an area I am looking forward to exploring.

Towards a taxonomy of perceived agency in narrative game-play
Mallon, B. 2008. Towards a taxonomy of perceived agency in narrative game-play. ACM. 5(4): pp 1-15.

“A user’s sense that he or she is the protagonist of the action, controlling future events, can conflict with the fact that aspects of the narrative are prewritten. A major challenge in designing games with a prewritten narrative is therefore to make the player feel that they are truly interacting within, and have agency
within, the narrative world.” (p.1)

“Sophisticated users are aware of the new “language” of game-play, and they expect, even desire, that their experience will be directed. They know that the environment is artificial, but still a well-crafted product will enable them to participate in the fiction that they are the protagonists for action, that they author the outcomes.” (p.2)

phenomenological methodology //???

“The idea that successful accomplishment of game tasks gives players the sense that they are the central protagonists, that they are responsible for achieving the goals is fundamental to the players’ sense of agency in game-play. If players succeed in their set-tasks, their accomplishment motivates them to continue.” (p.6)

“Players want an environment that responds intelligently, realistically, and developmentally to their interaction – in this case, by allowing players to adapt their tool-handling over the course of a game to take their gradual learning into account.” (p.8)

“While players sought realism in the games, in the expectation that the environment would conform with the physical laws of the outside world, as discussed in the context of sensory feedback during fighting scenes, they also sought realism in the behavior of the game characters. Players complained about game characters’ identical responses when clicked on repeatedly; they expected evidence to indicate a relationship had been established. ” (p.10)

//References that may be relevant:
CARSON, D. 2000. Environmental storytelling: Creating immersive 3D worlds using lessons learned From the
theme park industry. Gamasutra. http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20000301/carson_01.htm. Accessed
March 2003.
TALIN, D. 1998. Real interactivity in interactive entertainment. In Digital Illusion: Entertaining the Future with
High Technology, C. Dodsworth (ed.), Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, 151-159.

Narrative and Player Agency
Schubert, D. 2011. Narrative and player agency. Game Developer. 18(2): n/a.

“Choice is hugely important, but it only really truly begins to shine once the player can see the results of their actions in-game. Choosing to save the princess and letting the village burn doesn’t carry much weight if the village is still there after the fact. Seeing the results of your actions bear fruit is what truly makes these choices matter, whether it’s inside the narrative (i.e., turning an enemy into an ally for the endgame) or through mechanics (such as when Mass Effect 2’s conversations and quests increase your standing with your companions). Otherwise, these choices are transparently inconsequential.”

“It’s impossible for NPCs to react to every combination of choices that the player has made, especially if the design of these stories has been heavily compartmentalized. As such, many designs centering on narrative agency include a summary score that describes the player’s actions so far. Dungeons & Dragons had alignment, of course, but it was meant to be more prescriptive than descriptive. Since then, dozens of games have had similar systems.”

“Knights of the Old Republic, for example, gave the stark choice between the Light Side and the Dark Side that fans of the Star Wars movies would expect, but choices are frequently more interesting when they aren’t strictly good or evil. Vampire: Bloodlines allows players to choose between embracing their humanity or their budding bestiality. Mass Effect allows the player to choose between playing as a do-gooder Boy Scout, or a Jack Bauer renegade bent on getting the right thing done no matter the cost. Red Dead Redemption allows the player to choose between honor and dishonor.”

//Although this text is less related to animation, it does spark some ideas. This idea of the characters animations reflecting their personality, and emotional state, could be influenced by the points above. In games where players make decisions that affect the morality of their character, this could lead to animations that reflect their morality, which would evolve over time and in response to the player. In games like these, the players agency is less likely to be disrupted by changing the animations, as they are effectively creating the characters personality through their deeds. As long as the animations reflect the personality of the character, it could add a level of satisfaction that the players choices are making a difference.

Player Agency and the Relevance of Decisions
Thue, D. et al. 2010. Player agency and the relevance of decisions. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. 6432: pp. 210 – 215.

“Current commercial video games provide a certain type of agency, agency from gameplay, very well; by skillfully manipulating a game’s input device, players can explore virtual environments,, interact with virtual character, and over-come challenges as they arise.” (p.210)

//Have to admit, there was less relevant materials in this one. The paper mainly focused on decision trees and how to order the importance of events based on the players play style.

Agency and the Art of Interactive Digital Storytelling
Knoller, N. 2010. Agency and the art of interactive digital storytelling. Springer Berlin Heidlberg. 6432: pp. 264-267.

“Mateas and Stern [6] distinguish between local and global agency. Local agency is the experience attendant to a specific user action or choice: “When the player’s actions cause immediate, context specific, meaningful reactions from the system, we call this local agency.” Global agency can be deferred: “[A]t the end of the experience the player can understand how her actions led to this storyline.”” (p.265)
[6] Mateas, M., Stern, A. : Structuring Content in the Façade Interactive Drama Architecture. In: Young, R.M., Laird, J.E. (eds.) Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment, pp. 93 – 98. AAAI Press, Menlo Park (2005)

“Rather than an ideal, true agency should be seen as a myth. Futhermore, restrictions on agency should not be viewed as a shortcoming. Dramatised agency – and this is what one might indeed experience in IDS [Interactive digital storytelling] – should be no different from any other emotion felt in a dramatic context. As with pity and fear, so does the feeling of agency in an artistic, dramatic context, is experience as free from any “threat of harm or pain in the real world” {[3] p.114). Agency in IDS is not real world agency. It is always already restricted, first by virtue of being simulated and dramatised, and then specifically by any additional (authorial) constraints.”  (p.266)
[3] Laurel, B.: Computers as Theatre. Addison Wesley, Boston (1993)

“First, current sensing and affective computing technologies are able to react to implicit aspects of user behaviour and performance. Being implicit– and therefore unintentional – these aspects of interactivity can’t be understood in terms of local control – agency, which is necessarily intentional, and yet they may produce meaning retrospectively, as the player;s implicit causation of events becomes apparent.
Second, even if the technology was able to respond only to choices and decisions, artists are with their rights to treat agency as subject matter by creating IDS experiences that play on, challenge and frustrate aspects of control – agency (both either local or global) rather than simply of as-is (as we’ve seen in 3 above – and there are other examples such as [10] and [11]); and players may enjoy such experiences and find them meaningful.
In these respects it seems that the assumption of the primacy of agency as intentional player control over the plot, at least for IDS-as-art, requires some revision. (p.267)
[10] Raduz Cincera. Kinoautomat, Czechoslovakia (1967)
[11] Kojima Productions, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2008)

//This last part is very true to what I am doing. I am challenging or potentially frustrating the players sense of agency as the animations are determining what the character is feeling. Rather than the player placing themselves in the character and projecting their emotions on to them, it is the reverse, where the characters reactions could influence the players emotional response to the scenario. I am experimenting with local agency, how the game is immediately responding to the players input and presenting them with contextual feedback.

Day 5: My Research Project

After studying Journey, Child of Light and Monument Valley in detail, I have noticed something about the main characters, none of them react to the atmosphere around them. They seem oblivious to their surroundings, and once I had noticed this, it felt really unrealistic.

To confirm this, I looked at other games including: Legend of Zelda; Ocarina of Time, Uncharted 3 and The Last of Us, and, as far as I can see, none of them change the way the player moves or idles in relation to the atmosphere or tone of the environment.

Do not get me wrong, these games tend to have animations when dealing with some physical environmental things, like while walking up hills or into wind, the characters lean forward, or if they have been hurt, they start limping, but they do not change their movements when the mood is different. The idea that I have is looking to portray an emotional response of the character to their surroundings.

(Skip to 39 minutes in to see what I am explaining)

As an example; in Journey, when the player is in the tunnel section, and there is an eerie tone and innate sense of danger, the character still has the same run cycle as in the previous light hearted section of the game. When one of the guardians flies past, and the player has positioned themselves behind a wall to avoid detection, there is no reaction in the character that says this is a danger and should be avoided, which contrasts completely with the atmosphere that is built through the lighting, sound and colours.

This seems like such a simple idea, that could enhance player experience and emotional response, that I am surprised that it isn’t done. As I research this further, I may discover it has been, and that I haven’t been looking in the right places. I also may discover why this hasn’t been done, I can imagine time and money are factors involved, but in a game with only one main character, to me, it seems like a worthwhile investment. So for now, as Visualizing Research suggests, I’m going to cast my net wide and look at environmental storytelling and character performance in games.