Category: Term2-Theory with Nigel

After I do lot of reading and reasearch the subtext ,I realised that it is hard to find the definition in words, but all the technique, and the subtext need the emotionla felling in realistic rather than on the paper words. even I found lots of facial animation research reference, like:

• Bancroft, T. (2006) Creating Characters with Personality: For Film, TV, Animation, Video Games, and Graphic Novels. New York: Watson-Guptill.
• Şekeroğlu, G. K. (2012) ‘Aesthetics and design in three dimensional animation process’, Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 51, pp. 123–127.
• Osipa, J. (2007) Stop Staring: Facial Modeling and Animation Done Right. 3rd edn. Indianapolis: Wiley.

those are classic 3d facial expression animation books and tutourial.

However, I decide to change an angle about the character style and Cyberpunk style character is really close the Arane from my perspective, also they have facial expressions too, in other words, Cyberpunk style including special Character style design, like Mashine, silver surface, materials for steel and neon lights, etc. Maybe, they can all sum up as Futire mechanical style.

So, when I doing the reaserch, I listing a lirerature review draft be like:

Research aim and question:

1. This research asks: does mechanical aesthetics make people feel more connected to an animation? Or does it make the animation less meaningful？This study looks at whether mechanical aesthetics enhance or weaken the emotional meaning of animation. It also talks about the future of mechanical aesthetics ( its fiction and its value)
2. This eaasy explores how mechanical aesthetics in animation connects with ethics and social interaction. It also thinks about the problem of modern aesthetic relativism.
3. This research looks at how mechanical art challenges the very idea of beauty. It also asks how 3D animation changes our ideas about athentics in our century.
4. Does It also examines how the roles of animation artists, audiences, and critics are changing in this age of too much information?

This week I find lots of materrial to reading about my topic, I was thinking about how to write the right structure with Harvard cite. Like when I find some article about special aethetics in 3D animation, then found an article about ‘Aesthetics and Design in Three Dimensional Animation Process’ , there mention a element aim to do somthing，There is some example by Gokce Kececi Sekeroglu ( 2012, pp. 812-817)：

“Storyboarding process reflects 3D animator’s perspective and the elements that are aimed to be conveyed to the audience. The animation artists give life to a scenario, and add a touch of their personality to the characters and environment.”

That mean like , every element inside the animation or character design have some extent purpose. Like characters and environment elements may affect the audience’s understand with the story meaning.

After reading and finding some research, I start thing about my topic and the range of my literture reviw and FMP essay, that I need to select the article or book to find the key words.

Reference: Harvard cite practice

Gokce Kececi Sekeroglu, (2012) Aesthetics and Design in Three Dimensional Animation Process, Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, pp. 812–817. Available at: Aesthetics and Design in Three Dimensional Animation Process – ScienceDirect

I was leaning the 3D facial expression in my 3D techniques class, we leand how to animation the facial expression, which is including aniamte eyes, mouth, nose, and head angle, then I realised that I am not good at it and I don’t even have enough knowledges with facial expression. So, I try to decide to write this animation performance with faical poses.

I want to focuses on facial performance in 3D animation. It studies how facial features communicate subtext in character performance. Mentioning the subtext is the hidden emotion of a character. It is not directly spoken. It is shown through small visual details. In animation, facial performance plays a key role in this process. Maybe I can stick on specific parts of the face. These include the eyes, eyelids, gaze direction, and blinking. It also looks at the eyebrows and mouth. These elements work together to show emotion.

Among these features, the eyes are especially important. Small changes in eye movement can strongly affect how the audience reads emotion. This suggests that facial animation is not only technical, but also a designed performance system, and analyse how these facial elements are used in 3D animation. It will focus on how subtext is communicated through controlled facial performance.

When I was doing the literature review, I wrote some knowledge about the topic: In the book ‘Animation Character Design‘ by Tom Bancroft, Chapter 2 talks about how the face works : for men, women, and everyone else. It explains how to push a character’s facial expressions and why it’s important to understand the face parts for both humans and animals.

For example, a male human character and an animal character like a dog can share similar features. That’s what anthropomorphic characters are.

• Eyes – When an actor is in a close-up shot, the first thing we look at is their eyes. Then we look at the mouth for emotional clues.
• Eyebrows – If eyes are the windows, eyebrows are the curtains.
• Mouth – It also helps define the expression you want to show.
• Neck – The tilt of the head can say a lot.
• Some animals use their ears to show feelings. Ears up means happy or curious. Ears down means sad or thoughtful.

The eye is surrounded by skin and muscles, so those muscles can give each character a unique eye shape. A lot of the time, we only see less than one-third of the eyeball’s surface. There’s more going on behind it. When the pupil moves along the round eyeball, its shape helps show where the character is looking, then there’s the “zombie eye” which is a blank, lifeless look. Characters rarely use that expression.

In this week, we start thing about the potential topic with our assignment. Then I wrote the Arcane Style essay (3D+2D) last term, and this arts performance style I really like, expecially character and the world view design (background, Character skills, Character performence and after effect), So here is my choice:

I want to explore character performance in 3D animation.

and knowing what kind of 3D characters can become popular( for example Jinx in Arcane). I also want to understand how characters express well in emotions. They use body language, gestures, and facial expressions.

Today there are new technologies for character performance. Motion capture can help characters show human emotions more naturally. Facial capture can create detailed facial expressions. Unreal Engine 5 also has a tool called MetaHuman. It helps artists create realistic digital characters.

These technologies are widely used in modern 3D games and animation cinematics. I want to learn these skills and understand how they work, because it can help me understand the workflow of popular 3D games, especially in character production.

In this week which is the first week to comeback study, Nigel tough us more clear understand and introduce the structure and content the thesis requires. We look at the proposal assignment and discuss potentials for developing topics for the thesis.

Like choose an objective and topic, and this is a good way to ask yourself and better pick up a topic for FMP.

• Does the topic motivate you to research and discover?
• How might the research impact present , Are there potentials to apply new learning?
• be able to fulfil and evidence the outcomes outlined in the assignment?

Second is establish the audience group

• Audience: who and what is the study for?
• Purpose: what do you want them to know?

Next is the structuring the thesis before completing all necessary research and some critical review of literature informing the research and used sources to investigate the topic and achieve objectives.

I know it really hard for me expecially I am not good at essay and writing. but is till value to try.