Emotion Depiction: Expressive Characters sequences using painterly rendering

Candidate: Hasti Seifi
Type: Master of Science (MSc), School of Interactive Arts and Technology
Date: December 3, 2010
Senior Supervisor: Steve DiPaola
Thesis: Download Thesis Document

Abstract

This thesis proposes a technique to enhance emotional expressiveness in games and animations. Past studies have shown that people associate specific colours with certain emotions. Furthermore, some studies demonstrated the effect of textural variations and brush properties on viewers’ perception as well as their gaze pattern while looking at a portrait painting. Motivated by previous studies, we hypothesized that the appropriate use of colour palette and brush properties increases the emotions perceived in a facial character sequence. In order to examine this hypothesis, we programmed test sequence data and conducted a series of studies. In general, the results of the studies supported our hypothesis, which verifies the importance of visual style on viewers’ perception while watching an animated sequence. This technique can provide the animator with a depiction tool to enhance the emotional content of a character sequence in games and animations.

Keywords:  facial expressions; expressive games; Non-photo Realistic Rendering; colour-palette; painterly texture; focus of attention; game; animation; avatar; user study; user perception.