I wanted to:
- Re- read Robin Sloan's journal with my new project, NPC reactions to player interactions, in mind. Fishing for things that could be relevant in backing up my own ideas in my lit review and possible criteria to look into to use as a framework.
- Devise a mini project focusing on an aspect of character animation i feel weaker on.
Re-read the first part of Robin Sloan's journal on User Agency and Character Performance within games. I've taken a quote which backs up my own argument that NPC's are needed to create a compelling story within certain types of games.
"Pivotal (NPCS) - those constituting the supporting cast of a video game - are essential to the telling of a game story. Particularly in genres that focus on story and characters" (Sloan, 2011)
Later on he identifies that the development of reactive characters performance has been largely overlooked in games thus far. Which further justifies my project as a valid topic to look into. I also found a quote which i thought about possibly turning into a test.
" Variation, Posing, Sequence and Timing of character movements rendered on the fly can manipulate audience interpretation and the perceived content"
I could possibly create a couple animations exploring each of the four criteria mentioned and then let other people view them and give their own opinions on how the difference affects what they think the characters personality could be.
For example, for pose I could show short idle animations of the same character standing with slightly different posture and see if that has any affect on the audience interpretation of their personality.
I then looked for journals that studied the importance of character in video games, i think this search stemmed from a thought that's been resonating with me for the last few days and looking at character personality brought it to the surface again. Recently i attended a talk laid on by the university with Sean Laverty who works at Blizzard and Fraser Maclean who works within the animation industry on such projects as Tarzan and Who framed Roger Rabbit. During the talk Fraser Maclean made a comment about the importance of character animation within games and how he didn't feel it was as important as the environment the player was in. I could be misinterpreting his comment but from the way it sounded and if that view is commonly shared it could be one reason why NPC personality hasn't been explored fully in games so far.
My search produced a journal called:
"Characters in Computer Games: Toward Understanding Interpretation and Design"
- Petri Lankoski, Satu Heliö, Inger Ekman
which can be found at this link: http://www.digra.org/dl/db/05087.10012.pdf
Although it looks more at the character of the protagonist in games some of the methods they use are interesting and could easily be applied to NPCs instead. For example they look at the use of Dramatic writing and Literary Theory when designing a character for games.
The first note i took was a reference to G.Forster who wrote a view on designing literary characters. He put characters into two categories, flat and round. Flat characters are predictable in their responses and have little or no defining characteristics which could be a way of thinking about background NPC's. Round characters need to be "believable even when they surprise the reader"which could be a way of thinking when designing a more prominent NPC such as a companion character.
The next note was in regards to how possible it is to design a game character with personality as both Frasca and Menetzky agreed that more freedom for the player to interact = less character which would justify why a lot of games use cut scenes to get the characters personality across instead of attempting to do it within the game.
Then the article speaks about methods of portraying personality of the main character within the game and one in particular i thought applied to NPC personality. They speak about predefined action as a method of retaining consistency of personality and the example they give was the way characters (NPCs) react towards the protagonist. An NPCs reactions to the protagonists actions or presence will give the player some idea of the protagonist's personality. They use ICO as an example of this, Yorda's reactions to ICO within the game are trusting and obedient which will help to establish ICO's nature as friendly and caring.
"Pivotal (NPCS) - those constituting the supporting cast of a video game - are essential to the telling of a game story. Particularly in genres that focus on story and characters" (Sloan, 2011)
Later on he identifies that the development of reactive characters performance has been largely overlooked in games thus far. Which further justifies my project as a valid topic to look into. I also found a quote which i thought about possibly turning into a test.
" Variation, Posing, Sequence and Timing of character movements rendered on the fly can manipulate audience interpretation and the perceived content"
I could possibly create a couple animations exploring each of the four criteria mentioned and then let other people view them and give their own opinions on how the difference affects what they think the characters personality could be.
For example, for pose I could show short idle animations of the same character standing with slightly different posture and see if that has any affect on the audience interpretation of their personality.
I then looked for journals that studied the importance of character in video games, i think this search stemmed from a thought that's been resonating with me for the last few days and looking at character personality brought it to the surface again. Recently i attended a talk laid on by the university with Sean Laverty who works at Blizzard and Fraser Maclean who works within the animation industry on such projects as Tarzan and Who framed Roger Rabbit. During the talk Fraser Maclean made a comment about the importance of character animation within games and how he didn't feel it was as important as the environment the player was in. I could be misinterpreting his comment but from the way it sounded and if that view is commonly shared it could be one reason why NPC personality hasn't been explored fully in games so far.
My search produced a journal called:
"Characters in Computer Games: Toward Understanding Interpretation and Design"
- Petri Lankoski, Satu Heliö, Inger Ekman
which can be found at this link: http://www.digra.org/dl/db/05087.10012.pdf
Although it looks more at the character of the protagonist in games some of the methods they use are interesting and could easily be applied to NPCs instead. For example they look at the use of Dramatic writing and Literary Theory when designing a character for games.
The first note i took was a reference to G.Forster who wrote a view on designing literary characters. He put characters into two categories, flat and round. Flat characters are predictable in their responses and have little or no defining characteristics which could be a way of thinking about background NPC's. Round characters need to be "believable even when they surprise the reader"which could be a way of thinking when designing a more prominent NPC such as a companion character.
The next note was in regards to how possible it is to design a game character with personality as both Frasca and Menetzky agreed that more freedom for the player to interact = less character which would justify why a lot of games use cut scenes to get the characters personality across instead of attempting to do it within the game.
Then the article speaks about methods of portraying personality of the main character within the game and one in particular i thought applied to NPC personality. They speak about predefined action as a method of retaining consistency of personality and the example they give was the way characters (NPCs) react towards the protagonist. An NPCs reactions to the protagonists actions or presence will give the player some idea of the protagonist's personality. They use ICO as an example of this, Yorda's reactions to ICO within the game are trusting and obedient which will help to establish ICO's nature as friendly and caring.
I think this view of the role of the NPC gives a greater cause for more performance based reactions within games to help the player know their place in the world and the sort of person they play as.
This research seems to have uncovered a link between the personality of the protagonist and the reactions the NPC's would be required to give which may explain why some animations were missing when the player acts out of character. So while looking at games from now i might want to take that into account.
I had some more notes on this journal but they seem to be drifting into the visual design of a character and it's affect on personality which isn't really something i want to look into at this time.
Animation PractiseAs I mentioned at the beginning of this post i want to prepare little exercises for me to do when i don't have any tests planned so i can continue to improve my skills as an animator. The first I've come up with is doing a study on hand movements. I plan on recording my hand moving and then mimicking the reference footage with an animated rig. Hopefully it will give me a better insight into how hands move so that when i animate in future i have a deeper understanding of how to approach it.
Update: I got a bit stuck with what to do with my hand so after some hunting for a good clip of film with no success i ended up on the 11 second club website. I was tempted to enter the competition for this month or at least use it for practise but when i was reading the tips it gives you i came across this quote:
"It's like a guy saying, "You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to start off as a four-star chef." Well, can you cook a cup of rice? "No." Can you cook an omelet? "No." Well, why don't you start off learning how to cook rice, and by the way, that takes about a year. Four star chefs take a full year learning how to cook rice and how to cook omelettes "Well, I'm not going to do that." Well, then you're never going to be a four-star chef."
I think i want to start a bit smaller with my practices, go back to basics a bit more so i can get a better grasp on the principles of animation. It gave a few suggestions of ways to practice which i'm going to take on board. They are...
Bounce a ball up and down. Don't worry about moving it across the screen, or rotating it naturally, or interacting with obstacles. Just try a simple up-and-down bounce. It's more complicated than you might think.
Buy a magazine. Any magazine. On almost every page you'll find a photograph of a person in a pose, whether it's an advertisement or related to the magazine's featured articles. Pick one and pose your character to match that photograph as closely as possible. Really look at all of the nuances--from the spine to the hips, to the tips of the fingers--that create that pose.
Stand your character naturally in one place, resting its weight on its left leg. Then animate the character shifting its weight to the right leg while standing in the same spot.
Do the same exercise as above, only this time have the character's feet shift a little as well.
Here's the animations of a ball, one heavy one light. I've also been trying to use my sketchbook more.. the better i understand how anatomy works the better my poses will appear in my animations.
Update 2: I explained the theory of NPCs animations reflecting the main characters personality to James and because i had to explain it to someone out loud it came out making a lot more sense and had a lot more detail to it so i'm going to try and remember what i said. Using the above information i explained that i would need to look for animations that were missing but still would be expected to happen from the protagonist of a game. As according to the theory i had made based on the information from the Journal mentioned earlier in this post the animations of an NPC need to be not only a reflection of their own individual personality but that of the protagonists personality too. I then picked out a reason why i thought skyrim had done better than a lot of previous games because when playing as a Kajit some of the NPCs in the world had almost a racist attitude towards me, and comments and reactions fitted with that, but what they didn't do is react to my character as an individual which is where it fell down a little. From this i thought perhaps a mix of skyrims reactions to the stereotype of my character and fables reaction to me as an individual would be the best way to approach a new system. So if you spoke to a character in skyrim often enough they grew either fonder or more aggressive towards you based on your previous actions. James then told me about a game that came out about a month ago which apparently didn't do as well as it should have called Spec Ops : The line. It's a first person shooter but apparently it plays much more on story and the choices you make come back to haunt you and your character. I haven't played this but based on the opinion of Yahtzee's review of it on zero punctuation it looks worth it just to observe the changes in the characters animations (if there are any) plus any game that he doesn't tear a new one, if you pardon the expression, seems to be worth playing. Here's his review, expect his usually crassness...
This research seems to have uncovered a link between the personality of the protagonist and the reactions the NPC's would be required to give which may explain why some animations were missing when the player acts out of character. So while looking at games from now i might want to take that into account.
I had some more notes on this journal but they seem to be drifting into the visual design of a character and it's affect on personality which isn't really something i want to look into at this time.
Animation PractiseAs I mentioned at the beginning of this post i want to prepare little exercises for me to do when i don't have any tests planned so i can continue to improve my skills as an animator. The first I've come up with is doing a study on hand movements. I plan on recording my hand moving and then mimicking the reference footage with an animated rig. Hopefully it will give me a better insight into how hands move so that when i animate in future i have a deeper understanding of how to approach it.
Update: I got a bit stuck with what to do with my hand so after some hunting for a good clip of film with no success i ended up on the 11 second club website. I was tempted to enter the competition for this month or at least use it for practise but when i was reading the tips it gives you i came across this quote:
"It's like a guy saying, "You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to start off as a four-star chef." Well, can you cook a cup of rice? "No." Can you cook an omelet? "No." Well, why don't you start off learning how to cook rice, and by the way, that takes about a year. Four star chefs take a full year learning how to cook rice and how to cook omelettes "Well, I'm not going to do that." Well, then you're never going to be a four-star chef."
I think i want to start a bit smaller with my practices, go back to basics a bit more so i can get a better grasp on the principles of animation. It gave a few suggestions of ways to practice which i'm going to take on board. They are...
Give it some thought. Here are some exercise ideas you can try if you really want to improve those basic skills:
Here's the animations of a ball, one heavy one light. I've also been trying to use my sketchbook more.. the better i understand how anatomy works the better my poses will appear in my animations.
Update 2: I explained the theory of NPCs animations reflecting the main characters personality to James and because i had to explain it to someone out loud it came out making a lot more sense and had a lot more detail to it so i'm going to try and remember what i said. Using the above information i explained that i would need to look for animations that were missing but still would be expected to happen from the protagonist of a game. As according to the theory i had made based on the information from the Journal mentioned earlier in this post the animations of an NPC need to be not only a reflection of their own individual personality but that of the protagonists personality too. I then picked out a reason why i thought skyrim had done better than a lot of previous games because when playing as a Kajit some of the NPCs in the world had almost a racist attitude towards me, and comments and reactions fitted with that, but what they didn't do is react to my character as an individual which is where it fell down a little. From this i thought perhaps a mix of skyrims reactions to the stereotype of my character and fables reaction to me as an individual would be the best way to approach a new system. So if you spoke to a character in skyrim often enough they grew either fonder or more aggressive towards you based on your previous actions. James then told me about a game that came out about a month ago which apparently didn't do as well as it should have called Spec Ops : The line. It's a first person shooter but apparently it plays much more on story and the choices you make come back to haunt you and your character. I haven't played this but based on the opinion of Yahtzee's review of it on zero punctuation it looks worth it just to observe the changes in the characters animations (if there are any) plus any game that he doesn't tear a new one, if you pardon the expression, seems to be worth playing. Here's his review, expect his usually crassness...
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