17/10/12 - Body Language and Animation Test

I decided I'd combine a couple of the the tests I'd suggested into one. I'm going to mimic a gun being pointed at a group of three people and animate what i think possibly should happen in that situation. I decided it wasn't a great idea to just jump in and guess so I've spent some time looking for validation for my suggestions in journals and books on body language. So far all I've found is this website which i presume takes its information from the book "changing minds" by David Straker

http://changingminds.org/techniques/body/defensive_body.htm

I tried to get quotes from inside the book but the look inside function seems to be limited... or the book is actually very small and unhelpful... more likely to be the first though. 

So here are the defensive movements that i thought might apply to the situation. The first represents instinctive covering of internal body parts such as hunching the shoulders to protect the neck and using the arms to cover the abdomen and face. The second uses its arms to keep distance between them and the danger. The third is pretty obvious, hiding behind something, although this is an extreme representation as people may hide behind something as small as a pen instinctively. The fourth is crouching into a ball and making yourself as small as possible. Smaller target, harder to hit. And the Fifth is rabbit in car headlights approach, so scared that the muscles stiffen. This could be done for a couple of reasons, either tensing the muscles to prepare for a physical attack or not moving in case of raptor attack or another predator that sees movement clearer.

I've done two different storyboards because i thought if the people involved were different it would probably affect the way the people responded. I probably should have done an extra frame so person 1 could react further but i think this is a good starting point. The NPCs  especially no. 3 in this example display a number of the reactions listed in the link above to help display fear. I tried to make it so that no. 1 has a delayed reaction because they'd be mainly facing away from the gun so they would only really notice because of the reactions of the other 2. and the whole purpose of this test is to recreate something that might actually happen.

I've started animating but it'll take another day at least to get it to a place where im happy it shows what i want it to. Next test maybe less people...