While much is known about the appearance and human perception of emotional facial expressions, researchers and professionals experience difficulties when attempting to create believable animated characters. Methods for automating or capturing dynamic facial expressions have come on in leaps and bounds in recent years, resulting in increasingly realistic characters. However, accurate replication of naturalistic movement does not necessarily ensure authentic character performance. In this paper, the authors present a project which makes use of creative animation practices and artistic reflection as methods of research. The output of animation practice is tested experimentally by measuring observer perception and comparing the results with artistic observations and predictions. Ultimately, the authors aim to demonstrate that animation practice can generate new knowledge about dynamic character performance, and that arts-based methods can and should be considered valuable tools in a field often dominated by technical methods of research.
Facial expressions can be used to communicate emotional states through the use of universal signifiers within key regions of the face. Psychology research has identified what these signifiers are and how different combinations and variations can be interpreted. Research into expressions has informed animation practice, but as yet very little is known about the movement within and between emotional expressions. A better understanding of sequence, timing, and duration could better inform the production of believable animation. This paper introduces the idea of expression choreography, and how tests of observer perception might enhance our understanding of moving emotional expressions.
In the last decade, the maturation of the first generation of gamers has underpinned growing discussion of nostalgia for and in videogames. This paper considers how the search for a connection to our past can be satisfied through consumption of the richly remediated memories represented in nostalgic videogames. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon and Gone Home are analysed framed by Baudrillard's theories of consumer objects and simulation. These videogames make extensive use of 1980s and 1990s cultural referents. In particular, they embed references to media (such as music, film, and television) that epitomise memories of these periods. The aim of the paper is to discuss the ways in which the videogames commodify nostalgia in order to fulfil a consumer need for retrospection, and to examine the extent to which they provide a simulation of cultural memory that blurs historical reality with period modes of representation.
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