Character Animation Research Articles

No Face, No Race? Racial Politics of Voice Actor Casting in Popular Animated Films1

Racial politics in animated films has long been an important topic for scholars, but racial diversity in the casting of voice actors for animated films has been understudied. This article examines patterns in voice actor casting among 850 characters from 170 animated films released from 1989 to 2019. Because characters in animated films are not bound by voice actors' physical attributes, especially given that many animated characters are not even human, we consider the concepts of color‐blind and color‐conscious casting to understand the racial politics of voice actor casting. Our findings show that racial inequality and white dominance are a categorical reality in the animated film industry and that culturally specific film settings provide opportunities for voice actors of color. However, we also find that both color‐blind and color‐conscious casting can limit the realization of diverse and inclusive casting in animated films that feature fantastical, imaginative characters.

Simulation of X-ray projections on GPU: Benchmarking gVirtualXray with clinically realistic phantoms

Background and objectives: This study provides a quantitative comparison of images created using gVirtualXray (gVXR) to both Monte Carlo (MC) and real images of clinically realistic phantoms. gVirtualXray is an open-source framework that relies on the Beer-Lambert law to simulate X-ray images in realtime on a graphics processor unit (GPU) using triangular meshes.Methods: Images are generated with gVirtualXray and compared with a corresponding ground truth image of an anthropomorphic phantom: (i) an X-ray projection generated using a Monte Carlo simulation code, (ii) real digitally reconstructed radiographs (DRRs), (iii) computed tomography (CT) slices, and (iv) a real radiograph acquired with a clinical X-ray imaging system. When real images are involved, the simulations are used in an image registration framework so that the two images are aligned.Results: The mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) between the images simulated with gVirtualXray and MC is 3.12%, the zero-mean normalised cross-correlation (ZNCC) is 99.96% and the structural similarity index (SSIM) is 0.99. The run-time is 10 days for MC and 23 ms with gVirtualXray. Images simulated using surface models segmented from a CT scan of the Lungman chest phantom were similar to (i) DRRs computed from the CT volume and (ii) an actual digital radiograph. CT slices reconstructed from images simulated with gVirtualXray were comparable to the corresponding slices of the original CT volume.Conclusions: When scattering can be ignored, accurate images that would take days using MC can be generated in milliseconds with gVirtualXray. This speed of execution enables the use of repetitive simulations with varying parameters, e.g. to generate training data for a deep-learning algorithm, and to minimise the objective function of an optimisation problem in image registration. The use of surface models enables the combination of X-ray simulation with real-time soft-tissue deformation and character animation, which can be deployed in virtual reality applications.

Development of ‘Digital Kultur Application’ toward innovative and interactive education in cultural identity strengthening through socio-technology approach

This research employing qualitative method and data collection techniques of observation, in-depth interview, and literature study, selected five Gen-Z informants with purposive sample criteria to meet research objectives. Moreover, the interview results are linked to socio-technology and multimedia learning literature. The result of this research showed that Digital Kultur app still needs to be improved in terms of visuals, features, and usage, and the learning elements to be an innovative and interactive educational application. This can be done by adding a feature that recognizes sounds, tone patterns, and motions to be interpreted as certain cultural products that subsequently will be connected directly to certain information. In addition, to making it more interactive, the various sounds, tone patterns, and motions can be matched with favorite figures of each Gen-Z, such as animation characters or "K-Pop idols" thus becoming certain elaborate tone patterns and traditional motions, but with the sounds and visuals of their favorite figures. This offers innovation in more interactive multimedia learning for cultural education.

CiteSpace를 기반으로 한 애니메이션 영화 캐릭터 문헌 계량분석 연구

This paper searched and selected 268 literatures published in key journals and CSSCI between 2001 and 2022, with the scope of research results on the subject of animated film characters at CNKI (Zhiwang, China). Using CiteSpace software, the number of published papers, publication year, author, research institute, journal, and keyword of the data sample were visualized using a knowledge graph. Through the analysis, key institutions, important journals, and keyword clustering labels in related research fields were obtained. Through an analysis of the degree of rapid increase in keywords, it was confirmed that the 'narrative structure', which rapidly increased in 2019, was a research issue in recent years. In addition, we compared and analyzed the character analysis data of animation films and the quantitative analysis data of Chinese animation-related research literature. It is hoped that the results of this study can be used as reference materials for research achievements with higher academic value by researchers in the field in the future.

Penyuluhan dan Pelatihan Membuat Media Pembelajaran Animasi Flash Kepada Guru-guru Sekolah Dasar di Kelurahan Bakaran Batu

Animation comes from the Latin word "anima" which means soul, life, spirit. Meanwhile, characters are people, animals and other real objects that are presented in the form of 2D and 3D images. So that animated characters can be interpreted as images containing objects that appear to be alive, caused by the collection of images changing regularly and alternately being displayed. Objects in images can be text, shapes, colors and special effects. The purpose of this community service is to improve the learning system and methods in learning. So that students do not feel bored in class. The result of the counseling is that the participants/teachers are able to make flash animations with this counseling and training and the participants are able to improve applying the flash animation learning method in class

Multi-Participant Identity Figures in Indonesian Animated Films

The purpose of this research is to find Indonesian multiculturalism in animated film characters. Fictional characters are human copies of the real world. Characters are positioned to live life in the world of animation. The relationship between characters is manifested when there is an attachment of cultural identity. The characterizations in Indonesian animated films show the complexity of creation. This concept refers to the view that the more complex the characters are, the more memorable the audience will be. This research uses ethnographic method, given that the characters have a cultural identity. Characters are placed as objects that have mental and motivational qualities. In addition, there is the use of cultural symbols, which indicates multiculturalism. The identity of the characters refers to the unified heuristic of Stets and Burke's theory of identity. Meanwhile, the apparent multiculturalism refers to Ricardo L. Garcia's theory of multiculturalism. The condition of Indonesia, which has been based on pluralism from the start, really understands the existence of differences. So that consciously accept the occurrence of cultural syncretism. The results of this study indicate that Indonesian animated film characters tend to show the application of multiculturalism. And, multiculturalism has become an identity. Multiculturalism is proof of acceptance of this condition, and is manifested through animated film characters.

Diversifikasi Produk Tempe Sanan Malang Melalui Pelatihan Pembuatan Model Dan Cetakan Tempe Karakter

Kampung Sanan Malang has long been known as a center for making tempeh. It has been a long time since the Sanan Malang Tempe and Tempe Chips Production Center Association was established, which has 636 tempe producers as members. Some of its members have been able to process tempeh into various types of preparations. The innovation made in 2021 is named Character Tempe, namely tempeh in the form of animal characters, or fruits. During the trial period, character tempeh was produced using plastic cake molds. The problem faced is that members of this community want to be able to produce this tempeh with a larger production volume, and a more varied product. The reason is that no craftsmen have been able to make their own character models that are more varied as desired. Craftsmen also have not been able to make their own molds. The solution offered is training: making character models using plasticine, training on printing these models using RTV food grade. At the end of this activity, the craftsmen have the ability to produce processed tempeh characters quickly and with good quality so that they become a new Sanan Malang specialty product.

Prompting vegetable purchases in the supermarket by an affordance nudge: Examining effectiveness and appreciation in a set of field experiments

The supermarket is a promising location for stimulating healthier food choices by nudging interventions. However, nudging healthy food choices in the supermarket has shown weak effects to date. The present research introduces a new nudge based on the concept of affordances – i.e., an animated character – that invites interaction with healthy food products and examines its effectiveness and appreciation in a supermarket context. We present findings of a series of three studies. In Study 1, evaluations of the new nudge were collected, revealing that the nudge was appreciated. In Studies 2 and 3, field experiments were conducted to test the nudge's effect on vegetable purchases in a real-life supermarket. Study 3 demonstrated that vegetable purchases increased significantly (up to 17%) when the affordance nudge was placed on the vegetable shelves. Furthermore, customers appreciated the nudge and its potential for implementation. Taken together, this set of studies presents compelling findings illustrating the potential of the affordance nudge for increasing healthy choices in the supermarket.

Pembuatan Video Company Profile Fakultas Teknik Dan Komputer Universitas Harapan Medan Menggunakan Metode Chroma Key

The development of technology and information is increasingly rapid, it also has an impact on promotional media which increasingly have many ways of promoting goods or services. One of them is making a company profile video for the Faculty of Engineering and Computers Harapan Medan University, which does not yet have a company profile video as a promotional medium. Making a company profile video using the croma key method aims to introduce the institution to the wider community, convey what is on campus 3, Harapan Medan University and explain what rooms and facilities are on campus 3, Harapan Medan University. Therefore, in this study, a company profile video of the Faculty of Engineering and Computers Harapan Medan University will be made using a green screen effect using adobe illustrator, adobe after effects, and adobe premiere based on multimedia in the form of animated characters as the main characters. The method used in this study is the chroma key method because it combines animation with the original video. The results of this study will make it easier to introduce the Faculty of Engineering and Computers Harapan Medan University. By conducting a study using a questionnaire, researchers can get results from a company profile video that has been made for the Faculty of Engineering and Computers.
 

Subject playing with flat images: Transmedia spreadability of anime and manga character images

Anime and manga characters are so ubiquitous in Japan that people see them anywhere, regardless of public or private. The two-dimensional flatness of line drawing allows the character images to straddle the boundaries of the worlds of works and media. The analysis of individual artworks needs to be revised to understand the transmedia spreadability of characters and our living conditions. This paper, thus, overviews the preceding discussions of anime and manga scholars on human-character relations and compares them with the theory of subject formation in film studies, whose realist tendency once emphasized the three-dimensional space and time. While psychoanalysis-influenced theories such as suture and male gaze model after one-point perspective and subordinate two-dimensionality, Thomas Lamarre formulates a de-unified perspective in relation to the multilayered image field of Japanese anime. In conjunction with the orientation of cultural and fan studies to emphasize audience agency, this article discusses the de-unified perspective on flat images which has the potential for understanding the complexity of subject formation through the interplay with two-dimensional images.

Dealing with death: The role of animal-themed literature in supporting children with grief and loss

AbstractThe way that children deal with, and develop an understanding of death has long-term effects on their development and wellbeing. Mental health practitioners regularly turn to bibliotherapy (the use of books), many of which portray non-human animals as central characters, as a therapeutic tool for bereaved children. However, the extent to which non-human animal characters are used to assist children dealing with loss and dying, nor how and why it is used, particularly in relation to available therapies, is not well understood. To explore this, we conducted an online survey of 47 Australian mental health practitioners (M= 45.55 years of age,SD= 12.81; 80.9% female) who specialise in providing grief counselling to children (average of 13.26 years +/− 10.05 of professional experience). Overall, just over half (60.0%,n= 24/40) of practitioners preferred to use animal-themed death literature. However, it was not the most frequently used, nor considered the most effective therapeutic option across all age groups. There was a clear reduction in perceived usefulness with age. Bibliotherapy with animal characters was considered most effective for children between the ages of 2 and 7, and least effective for those over 12. Thematic analyses of open-ended responses revealed three overarching themes: (1) Animal-themed bibliotherapy was viewed as helpful in creating a bridge to access children’s emotions and providing a safe space to share them. (2) Practitioners considered animal-characters helpful for developing accurate death conceptualisation in younger children due to their familiarity with animals. Familiarity helps to encourage children to apply their observations of animal life cycles to human death, children identify with animal-characters, and they generally find animals appealing. (3) Its adoption by a therapist is dependent on children’s unique characteristics, practitioners’ personal preferences and the availability of appropriate literature. Findings from this study provide insight into practitioner perceptions of the role animal-characters play in children’s understanding of death at different ages and help to inform subject-matter choice for bibliotherapy literature. Animal-themed death literature has application as an adjunct therapy tool to assist children experiencing grief related to death and dying, but also more broadly (e.g., teachers and caregivers) to foster a healthy understanding of death in children.

Lumpen utopia: money, livestreaming, and labor in emerging media worlds

ABSTRACT Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Hengdian – China’s largest film and television studio—this article engages with recent scholarship regarding converging media and payment platforms. Thousands of unemployed people travel to Hengdian to find work as background actors in the production of historical dramas. But low wages lead many to seek monetized gifts by livestreaming as broke hengpiao, or Hengdian drifters, who encourage their audience to send them gifts and move to Hengdian to work in an alternative to waged-labor. Hengpiao construct alternative experiences of work through the animation of generic historical and livestreaming characters in exchange for payment. This alternative arises from performances, payments for activity, and gift exchanges that create contrasting chronotopes of labor, or mediated conceptions of time, space, and personhood entailed by payments for work. I describe the way these experiences are constructed and monetized in relation to revenue generation schemes that fuel the expansion of the platform economy. I argue that producing experiences of place, personhood, and class plays an important role in both creating payments that generate revenue for livestreaming platforms and forming the subjectivities of those who produce the platform economy.

Dogs and the Politics of Il|legal Border-Crossing: Suad Amiry’s Sharon and My Mother-in-Law and Marios Piperides’s Smuggling Hendrix

ABSTRACT This article merges border and animal studies through a comparative study of Suad Amiry’s memoir Sharon and My Mother-in-Law: Ramallah Diaries (2005, Palestine) and Marios Piperides’s film Smuggling Hendrix (2018, Cyprus). Engaging with the concepts of border aesthetics, border logic, and border law, the article draws attention to the function of animal characters (dogs) and illustrates their becoming platforms of anti-border politics. Both narratives explore the difference between human and animal experiences of borders and border-crossing, and through the fictionalized adventures of Nura and Jimi render borders simultaneously penetrable and comical. Their ability to legally or illegally cross the same borders their human owners are confronted with equips authors with ample opportunity for sharp political critique, largely invested in exposing the absurdity borders generate. Assigning these dogs with different legal statuses (Nura has a passport and crosses the border legally while Jimi crosses underground), Amiry and Piperides scrutinize the association between illegal border-crossing and resistance, demonstrating how it is only the contestation of border law which alone undermines border logic. The article thus exposes the complex tension between the political gain produced by the politicization of these animals vis-à-vis their becoming border-crossers, and the implications of this gesture for animals.

Buku dongeng Sunda sebagai literatur budaya pada buku Roesdi djeung Misnem

Sunda dialect is a local dialect from West Java Province that has to preserve. One of the learning materials can be conveyed through storytelling. Roesdi djeung Misnem book is a classic Sunda book that contains Sunda tales. Pabukon Ngadongeng Community Book Corner provides service for this book to material storytelling. This research aims to know the Sunda storytelling book as cultural literature to children in Roesdi djeung Misnem book at Pabukon Ngadongeng Community Book Corner through analysis of story meaning, kind of storytelling, characterization reader, and storytelling as a learning language. The research method used a qualitative approach through a narrative literature review. Roesdi djeung Misnem book has 19 tales with 13 themes from the meaning story: prudence, working together, smartness, gratitude, stinginess, loving, self-measurement, arrogance, brave, trust, honesty, good attitude, and glorifying parents. This kind of storytelling consists of tales with animal and human characters. Animal tales total seven tales, and human figures tales total 12 tales. In characterization reader, Roesdi djeung Misnem book can be read to children over nine. Sunda tales in this book can train to learn the Sunda language. So, librarians or Managers of Community Book Corner can design Sunda dialect learning materials through storytelling as an activity for local dialect revitalization.

TUTORIAL PEMBELAJARAN DALAM MEMBUAT PERBEDAAN GAYA GAMBAR KARAKTER KARTUN DAN ANIME

Cartoons are television shows in the form of moving images that were discovered in 1883, as the times progressed, cartoons evolved not only in the entertainment world but also in the world of marketing, this attracted illustrators to create something unique to attract people's attention, from the storyline to the characters. Characters are important extras in film production, especially in animation to clarify the information that will be conveyed in the film. The more characters that are created, the more drawing styles are produced, even every artist has their own drawing style. For this reason, the world of drawing is starting to learn techniques on how to draw, to create something unique but proportional, one of which is drawing designs character. This article discusses the steps in creating and making cartoon and anime characters.

Deep Learning-Based Cost-Effective and Responsive Robot for Autism Treatment

Recent studies state that, for a person with autism spectrum disorder, learning and improvement is often seen in environments where technological tools are involved. A robot is an excellent tool to be used in therapy and teaching. It can transform teaching methods, not just in the classrooms but also in the in-house clinical practices. With the rapid advancement in deep learning techniques, robots became more capable of handling human behaviour. In this paper, we present a cost-efficient, socially designed robot called ‘Tinku’, developed to assist in teaching special needs children. ‘Tinku’ is low cost but is full of features and has the ability to produce human-like expressions. Its design is inspired by the widely accepted animated character ‘WALL-E’. Its capabilities include offline speech processing and computer vision—we used light object detection models, such as Yolo v3-tiny and single shot detector (SSD)—for obstacle avoidance, non-verbal communication, expressing emotions in an anthropomorphic way, etc. It uses an onboard deep learning technique to localize the objects in the scene and uses the information for semantic perception. We have developed several lessons for training using these features. A sample lesson about brushing is discussed to show the robot’s capabilities. Tinku is cute, and loaded with lots of features, and the management of all the processes is mind-blowing. It is developed in the supervision of clinical experts and its condition for application is taken care of. A small survey on the appearance is also discussed. More importantly, it is tested on small children for the acceptance of the technology and compatibility in terms of voice interaction. It helps autistic kids using state-of-the-art deep learning models. Autism Spectral disorders are being increasingly identified today’s world. The studies show that children are prone to interact with technology more comfortably than a with human instructor. To fulfil this demand, we presented a cost-effective solution in the form of a robot with some common lessons for the training of an autism-affected child.

Доктор Сьюз о зверях и людях: опыт карикатуриста и иллюстрированные сказки 1930-х–1950-х годов

The paper deals with the first decades in the work of Dr. Seuss (the pseudonym of Theodor Geisel, 1904–1991), one of the most prominent children’s authors of the 20th century. Seuss was not only the author of children’s tales, but also a talented artist who illustrated his own books and whose manner was deeply influenced by his 15-year experience as a cartoonist. In 1920–1940s he worked for different print media, from humor magazines to a political newspaper, drew cartoons and commercial advertisements. Our aim is to study the mutual influence of Seuss-thecartoonist and Seuss-the-writer and illustrator. Our main focus is the “bestiary” of Dr. Seuss, the animal characters of his cartoons and tales. Seuss created his first eccentric animals in the series of cartoons and anecdotes for a weekly satirical magazine Judge in 1927; he blended the Victorian tradition of nonsense and the features of newspaper cartoons and comic strips of the first decades of the 20th century. The motif of eccentricity is developed in the first children’s tales that Seuss published at the turn of the 1930–40s. The same motif is significantly transformed in his political cartoons for a daily newspaper PM in 1941–1942. Seuss puts the familiar animal images into the context of World War II and gives them different political meaning, from the totalitarian insanity of the Axis leaders to the carelessness and blindness of the “America First” supporters. Interestingly enough, Dr. Seuss used in his political cartoons some plot elements of his tales for children, as well as his old sketches and drawings. In its turn, his post-war tales are peculiar parables that absorb the political issues of the previous historical period. Creating his images of tyrants, Seuss makes use of the techniques of political cartoons. He puts his human and animal characters into the situations of tyranny or isolationism, that can be overcome with the help of common sense.

Олениха и медведица: малоизвестный фольклорный сюжет

Folk narratives about two women who practice gathering, one of whom treacherously murders the other, and about the victim’s children who kill the murderer’s children and run away, are recorded in the Pacific region of the United States, in Chaco, in Eastern Indonesia, in Tibet, in East Africa (only one text) and (without the motif of killing children) in Western Siberia. The characters are mostly animal characters who behave like humans. There is no doubt that specialists who study cultures of particular regions are familiar with the relevant publications, but the transcontinental parallels for such stories have never been researched. The American versions demonstrate an area correlation with the Western Stemmed Tradition that is considered now to be as old as the Clovis tradition (13,250–12,800 cal BP) if not earlier. If so, the spread of the tale in question should be dated to the time of the initial settlement of America. The sets of motifs in the Indonesian versions are slightly closer to the American ones, while the Tibetan sets share more motifs with the Siberian tradition and have American parallels as well. In addition to the presented materials in the light of data on the settlement of the world by modern man, the author addresses questions of the genres of traditional narratives.

Образ Красной Птицы в китайской культуре и фольклоре

The image of the Zhu-niao (Red Bird) is familiar to specialists in the history and mytholo-gy of ancient China. This article examines the origin of the image and the development of the concept of Zhu-niao in Chinese culture and philosophy. The aim of the study is to analyze the semantics and symbolism of the Red Bird image, to establish the difference between the notions of the Red Bird and the Phoenix, to explain the projections of the Red Bird image in Chinese ornamental culture and folklore. The novelty of the study lies in the systematization and generalization of the meanings behind the Red Bird image in Chinese culture. The author concludes that the image of Zhu-niao represents Chinese primitive ancestors’ worship of the totem of the bird, totem of the sun, and totem of the constellation. The semantics of the Red Bird image in Chinese culture and folklore is classified into three categories. The Red Bird is primarily an ornithomor-phic symbol of one of the sides of the world: Zhu-niao (South) is among thefour zoomorphic symbols along with Qing-lun (East), Bai-hu (West), and Xuan-wu (North). The Red Bird is also a symbol of good luck and demonstrates the Chinese people’s idea of praying for good luck. In addition, the image of the Red Bird has become one of the four symbols of Taoism. Although the Red Bird image has different symbolic meanings, its semantics does not go beyond the context of Chinese traditional culture and national psychology. The practical significance of the study lies in the opening up of prospects for research into semantics and symbol-ism of mythical images in Chinese culture. The results of the study can be used in research on Chinese mythological images as well as animal characters in Chinese folklore and literary works.

HEALINGA Brief Analysis on the Artistic Features and Functions of Animal Characters in Healing Animation

As an art type with a typical missionary function, healing animation has become an essential creative type with its unique spiritual soothing feature. The healing animation that soothes our minds and gives us persistent comfort can leave audiences in a positive mood and spiritual solace. Today, all kinds of animal characters are increasing in animation; the shaping of characters plays a vital role in contributing to healing animation. This article analyzed the artistic features and functions of animals in animation works of healing systems and interpreted the roles of these animals, aiming at laying the foundation for making more touching animation works.