Character Animation Research Articles

Generative AI Processes for 2D Platformer Game Character Design and Animation

AI has the potential to revolutionize the time-consuming and technically complex process of 2D animation production. This paper specifically focuses on creating 2D character animations for platformer games using AI. While AI has made significant contributions to video animations, its application in 2D gaming animation is largely unexplored. Existing AI applications for animation mostly target video animations and lack effective control over randomness. Therefore, this paper explores the role of generative AI in 2D gaming animation, from character design to full animation. Software tools like ChatGPT, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and Unity are used to streamline the production process. The research aims to investigate the feasibility and potential of generative AI, with a focus on controlling randomness. By leveraging the unique features of each software, the study aims to enhance the production of 2D game animations. The final output will be an animated character in the Idle state, showcasing the potential of generative AI in 2D gaming animation.

Design and Implementation of Puzzle Adventure Game Based on Unity

With the progress of Gaming industry, the classic genre Puzzle adventure games, due to their friendly difficulty level, low learning curve, and interesting game mechanics, have been favored by a large number of players. This paper follows the guiding principles of software engineering and game development, designs and implements an adventure puzzle game using the Unity game engine. The game design is carried out through multiple aspects such as game art style, plot, sound effects, and game puzzles to provide players with an interesting gameplay experience. For the implementation part of the game, various plugins and functions of the Unity engine are integrated to complete the development of the game system, such as using Unitys navigation system to bake navigation meshes and implement automatic pathfinding for game characters. The animation state machine is used to arrange and control game character animations, and the Unity event system is used to implement click-based interactive functions in the game. At the same time, optimization was carried out based on the test results, improving the experience of user interface and the stability of game program, further enhancing the players gameplay experience. Finally, players can experience thrilling adventure in a mysterious world, and achieve a sense of accomplishment by solving puzzles and overcoming obstacles.

Going beyond Chat: Designing Connotative Meaningful Line Stickers to Promote Road Safety in Thailand through Participatory Design

Road accidents are a leading cause of death in Thailand, with increasing fatalities. Despite road safety campaigns during holidays, consistent communication is lacking in daily life. This research aimed to create Line application stickers, a top chat platform for Thailand, using the participatory design (PD) approach. PD was implemented in two steps. Firstly, 100 participants outlined character types, moods, tones, and communication objectives. They recommended lively animal characters with diverse texts, such as greetings, work, travel, and emotions. Then, through a focus group, the tortoise was identified to represent cautious drivers who follow traffic rules, the rabbit to represent fast and risky drivers, and the zebra to represent vigilant and disciplined traffic police officers as characters for Line stickers. Subsequently, using the semiotics approach, 40 Line stickers were designed, and embedded with denotative and connotative road safety messages. Secondly, feedback from the focus group, integral to the PD process, led to refinements. After launching, a survey of 50 users showed “Benefits Received”, “Text and Messages”, and “Meaning” dimensions received “Very Satisfied/Strongly Agree” ratings. The “Character” dimension received a “Satisfied” rating. The results for “Benefits Received” can also be analyzed in the context of the Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice (KAP) theory, which revealed that K and A were at the highest level, while P was at a high level. This suggests that the Line stickers designed in this study effectively conveyed road safety messages to the receivers. This research constitutes the pioneering exploration within the realm of Line stickers concerning road safety, signifying the originality and unique contribution of our research to the existing body of knowledge in this domain. The PD process in this research can serve as a guideline for creating safety-promoting media in diverse fields.

Object Motion Guided Human Motion Synthesis

Modeling human behaviors in contextual environments has a wide range of applications in character animation, embodied AI, VR/AR, and robotics. In real-world scenarios, humans frequently interact with the environment and manipulate various objects to complete daily tasks. In this work, we study the problem of full-body human motion synthesis for the manipulation of large-sized objects. We propose Object MOtion guided human MOtion synthesis (OMOMO), a conditional diffusion framework that can generate full-body manipulation behaviors from only the object motion. Since naively applying diffusion models fails to precisely enforce contact constraints between the hands and the object, OMOMO learns two separate denoising processes to first predict hand positions from object motion and subsequently synthesize full-body poses based on the predicted hand positions. By employing the hand positions as an intermediate representation between the two denoising processes, we can explicitly enforce contact constraints, resulting in more physically plausible manipulation motions. With the learned model, we develop a novel system that captures full-body human manipulation motions by simply attaching a smartphone to the object being manipulated. Through extensive experiments, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed pipeline and its ability to generalize to unseen objects. Additionally, as high-quality human-object interaction datasets are scarce, we collect a large-scale dataset consisting of 3D object geometry, object motion, and human motion. Our dataset contains human-object interaction motion for 15 objects, with a total duration of approximately 10 hours.

Decaf: Monocular Deformation Capture for Face and Hand Interactions

Existing methods for 3D tracking from monocular RGB videos predominantly consider articulated and rigid objects ( e.g. , two hands or humans interacting with rigid environments). Modelling dense non-rigid object deformations in this setting ( e.g. when hands are interacting with a face), remained largely unaddressed so far, although such effects can improve the realism of the downstream applications such as AR/VR, 3D virtual avatar communications, and character animations. This is due to the severe ill-posedness of the monocular view setting and the associated challenges ( e.g. , in acquiring a dataset for training and evaluation or obtaining the reasonable non-uniform stiffness of the deformable object). While it is possible to naïvely track multiple non-rigid objects independently using 3D templates or parametric 3D models, such an approach would suffer from multiple artefacts in the resulting 3D estimates such as depth ambiguity, unnatural intra-object collisions and missing or implausible deformations. Hence, this paper introduces the first method that addresses the fundamental challenges depicted above and that allows tracking human hands interacting with human faces in 3D from single monocular RGB videos. We model hands as articulated objects inducing non-rigid face deformations during an active interaction. Our method relies on a new hand-face motion and interaction capture dataset with realistic face deformations acquired with a markerless multi-view camera system. As a pivotal step in its creation, we process the reconstructed raw 3D shapes with position-based dynamics and an approach for non-uniform stiffness estimation of the head tissues, which results in plausible annotations of the surface deformations, hand-face contact regions and head-hand positions. At the core of our neural approach are a variational auto-encoder supplying the hand-face depth prior and modules that guide the 3D tracking by estimating the contacts and the deformations. Our final 3D hand and face reconstructions are realistic and more plausible compared to several baselines applicable in our setting, both quantitatively and qualitatively. https://vcai.mpi-inf.mpg.de/projects/Decaf

A Study on the Influence of the 8th Century A.D. Image of Feitian in the Mogao Caves on the Character Design of Modern Chinese Films

The Dunhuang cave community represented by the Mogao Grottoes is the most dazzling historical legacy of the development of the Silk Road civilization, and the murals in the Dunhuang caves are the “witnesses” of the development of human civilization, the crystallization of the convergence and integration of ancient Chinese civilization and world civilization, and the valuable heritage of the Chinese nation. The art of Dunhuang murals has further developed and changed through different epochs and cultural fusions, and the contemporary interpretation and innovation of its aesthetic concepts, artistic styles, and cultural values have become particularly important and valuable. In the context of artistic creation in the eighth century A.D., this study examines in-depth the stylistic characteristics of the Flying Sky image in the Mogao Grottoes; using methods such as observation, investigation, analysis, etc., and through the study and research on the styling of modern animation characters, it is found that the copying of the ancient art can not realize its maximum value, and that the traditional art can be inherited in a revolutionary way by disseminating it through the medium of modern media.

Abstract B146: Development of PRANA: Portal for Research, Analysis and traiNing of breAthing

Abstract Cancer survivorship is a challenging path involving symptoms that afflict both the physical and emotional aspects of life. Cancer survivors are increasingly adopting to newer tools that could be potentially beneficial in symptom relief. One such approach is yogic breathing, a set of breathing practices from the yoga tradition and can be a powerful tool to address both the mind and the body. Breathing regulation is a common technique in several cultures and practices and known to improve wellbeing. While mind-body practices are common among cancer patients, African American cancer patients have low accessibility to these tools although they are open to adopt these lifestyle practices. Our previous studies have shown salivary biomarker changes, and emotional improvement such as reduced stress in response to breathing exercises. We use these breathing exercises in a lodging facility (Hope Lodge) for cancer patients and caregivers during the treatment period. To improve the treatment delivery for remote learning in a culturally acceptable manner we are creating a web portal (named PRANA, meaning vital energy; and an acronym for Portal for Research, Analysis, and traiNing of breAthing) that will house several breathing exercises that would allow participants to choose depending upon their current state of mind and body. The Prana portal will be useful in delivering breathing exercises to patients from remote areas and places where yogic breathing is not provided commonly. We have created the alpha version of the animation characters, exercise scripts, and voiceover. Their cultural suitability is analyzed within the research group and by working with the Participant Engagement Groups (PEGS) through the South Carolina Clinical and Translational Research Institute. These animations will be constructed into a web portal for beta testing and will be available to present at this AACR meeting. Owing to the tailored nature of the practice, this tool will be acceptable by a large proportion of African American cancer survivors. Additionally, the portal would be a resource for researchers that are interested in studying individual breathing exercises. Citation Format: Sundaravadivel Balasubramanian, Crystal Nixon, Katharine R. Sterba, Graham W. Warren. Development of PRANA: Portal for Research, Analysis and traiNing of breAthing [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 16th AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2023 Sep 29-Oct 2;Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2023;32(12 Suppl):Abstract nr B146.

What gender are the animal characters in the illustrations? Gender stereotyping by children in early childhood

ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to examine gender stereotyping by pre-school children in selecting a picture book cover and assigning gender to animal characters in illustrations. We aimed to explore which gender children would assign to bear characters, when these are portrayed in different more or less gender stereotyped activities, occupations or emotional states. Furthermore, we analysed the criteria on which the children based their decision. The sample included 71 children aged 5–6 years. The findings showed that children’s selection of their favourite cover was consistent with gender stereotypes; most children picked the cover stereotypical of their gender. Similarly, the children’s assigning of gender to bear characters was consistent with gender stereotypes as well. The criteria they used when determining gender of a bear character could be categorized into three broader categories referring to the appearance of the bears; colours used and gender roles present in child’s environment.

Pelatihan Seni Peran Pada Naskah Anak “Sawunggaling Punya Cita-Cita” Karya Arif Rofiq Untuk Meningkatkan Kreativitas Siswa SD Muhammadiyah 4 Pucang Surabaya

This community service aims to improve the abilities of Muhammadiyah 4 Pucang Elementary School students in Surabaya in processing artistic creativity through acting. The material provided is studying and imitating characters in children's story texts who have local history competence and are socio-cultural. The learning model is role-playing based on children's games or role-playing by inviting students to imitate cute animal movements, traditional games, and character dialogues in children's story scripts that have local content and aspects of populist history. The basic reason for carrying out this activity is the lack of knowledge and experience of students in cultivating creativity through knowledge of children's script stories that are local to regional culture. The hope is to provide space for creativity to every student while at the same time strengthening the existence of regional arts and culture in children as the next generation of the nation. The steps are taken by providing role training to the characters through concentration, emotional memory, dramatic behavior, character building, observation, and rhythm. The result of this training is a form of children's drama performance. This Community Service activity through acting training on a children's script entitled Sawunggaling Has Ideals by Muhammadiyah Elementary School students is to foster creativity and interest in art in children through children's drama performances that have local historical and socio-cultural values.

A Study on the Color of Alibrihe's Character in Coco Animation

The family-oriented animation film Coco is the best animation work of all time, receiving rave reviews from audiences and critics for its universal themes that people across the world, beyond Mexico and Latin America, can sympathize with. In the play, Alibrije occupies the largest proportion in the Coco animation after the skeleton character, and is not a simple aesthetic device in the movie, but a traditional Mexican art. While he is very famous in the West, Alibrije's existence is still unfamiliar in the East. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to help refer to the color scheme of animation characters by studying the country's cultural colors through color image research in Mexico and applying this to the analysis of Alibrije's characters. The extracted colors were derived using the color analysis program provided by the KSCA Korean Standard Color Analysis Institute for Technology and Standards, and the research results are as follows. The common characteristic of the colors derived from Miguel's Dante, Mama Imelda's Pepita, Ernesto de la Cruz's Chihuahua, and Frida Kahlo's Monkey is red (R). Blue (B), orange (YR), and light green (GY) colors were used repeatedly as main colors, which matched Mexico's traditional colors. It was confirmed that the symbolic meaning of Mexico's traditional colors was projected onto the Alibrije character to make it lively and stand out, and that the characteristics of the character design were highlighted by mainly using harmonious and contrasting colors. In addition to existing analysis, as color media develops, 4D movies that can express fluorescent light, a special effect, and can be enjoyed by all five senses in addition to audiovisual are becoming popular, so research on 3D color design should be conducted.

Features of Culturalaesthetic Narratives of Chinese Hieroglyphics Animations

The purpose of the article is to identify the cultural and aesthetic narratives of animated Chinese characters and determine the directions of their development, as well as to identify the specifics of research on this topic and their integration into the global scientific context. The research methodology is determined by the specifics of the visual component and technological features of hieroglyphic animation works and is based on the application of the comparative and analytical method in combination with descriptive and formal analysis techniques. An important role in this work is given to the analysis and systematisation of scientific literature. The scientific novelty is determined by the analysis of the animated hieroglyph by studying a significant number of works in this area and by considering the Chinese scientific literature in comparison with the world literature in the field of kinetic typography. Conclusions. The Chinese character, as an important symbol of culture, is endowed with a wealth of connotations that allow for a sophisticated interpretation of their meaning and evolution with the help of the latest technologies. Therefore, in the practice of designers, the philosophy of hieroglyphic writing is transferred to digital media. The evolution of the hieroglyph can be traced in modern animation, especially in the creation of educational animation materials. Animation adds a time dimension to a static image and is presented in the form of a certain story, a narrative. It has been found that the creative searches of designers in this field are closely related to the poetry and polysemantics of the Chinese language and are directed to the depths of its history. In addition, some works of Chinese classical animation are closely related to the presence of hieroglyphic forms in animated narratives. The results of the study show that in the theoretical works of Chinese scholars, attention is focused on the preservation and promotion of Chinese culture, including in educational practice. There is also a concentration of technological research.

The effect of animated Sci-Fi characters' racial presentation on narrative engagement, wishful identification, and physical activity intention among children.

Characters play an integral role in animated narratives, but their visual racial presentation has received limited attention. A diverse group of U.S. children watched a 15-min physical activity-promoting animated Sci-Fi narrative. They were randomly assigned to one of three conditions, which varied the lead characters' racial presentation: realistic racially unambiguous (Original: White children, Black mother), realistic racially ambiguous (Ambiguous: All with brown skin without specified race/ethnicity), and fantastical racially ambiguous (Fantastical: All with brown skin with fantastical hair-and-eye color schemes). We assessed narrative engagement, wishful identification, and physical activity intention. Controlling for social desirability and multigroup ethnic identity, children who watched Fantastical characters showed significantly higher narrative engagement than those who watched Original characters, but they did not statistically differ from those who watched Ambiguous characters. Structural equation modeling indicated that narrative engagement and wishful identification fully mediated the racial representation effect (Fantastical vs. Original) on physical activity intention.

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.

Nursing Entrepreneurship Opportunities Through Sartika Products (Innovative Injection Sards) To Prevent Hospitalization In Children By Using Flannel Fabric Waste

Pediatric hospitalization is a medical experience that is often necessary, but can have a significant impact on children. In these situations, children are exposed to unfamiliar environments and medical procedures that may be frightening, including the use of needles. In addition, traumatic or painful experiences with needles during hospitalization can trigger the development of needle phobia in children. These phobias can impact their physical and mental well-being, interfere with medical care, and increase anxiety. innovative health product innovation injectable gloves (sartika) to prevent hospitalization in children by using flannel waste as a nursing entrepreneurship opportunity aimed at (1) overcoming the impact of hospitalization on sick children in hospitals/health centers/clinics, (2) as a medium for distraction/trauma healing so that children do not experience trauma after medical procedures (injections) because Sartika uses animated characters that are liked by children, (3) creates cheap, creative and innovative health products, (4) as one of the steps to preserve the environment through the use of 3R flannel waste (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle). Forms of entrepreneurial activity include the preparation, implementation, packaging and evaluation stages of Sartika products. Target The target users of Sartika's innovative products are pediatric patients in hospitals, health centers or clinics. The results of the activity show that the use of Sartika products has a positive impact on supporting the performance of medical staff (nurses) in hospitals during medical procedures (injections), child patients become more cooperative and children are distracted because Sartika products use animated characters that are liked by children, so that children do not experience trauma after medical procedures (injections). Community education based on a family approach is considered effective in overcoming the impact of hospitalization and trauma/phobia towards injection needles.

Anime-like Character Face Generation: A Survey

Recently, anime-style modeling has become increasingly popular. Automatic anime character generation can reduce costs and save manpower. There have been numerous related studies that need to be summarized and analyzed. This paper presents an overview of anime character face generation. Firstly, it summarizes the types and methods of 2D face generation for anime characters. Secondly, we introduce methods for anime character face modeling, including deep learning-based approaches and other approaches. Finally, we summarize the challenges of anime character face generation and evaluate their performance.

Analisis Makna Teks Fabel Karya Jean de La Fontaine “la Cigale et la Fourm, le Coq et le Renard, le Lion devenu vieux”

Fables are literary works in the form of literary texts in the form of exposure to stories and poems with animal characters. This study aims to determine the meaning and meaning of the Fable text of Jean de la Fontaine's three literary works, "la Cigale et la Fourmi, le Coq et le Renard, and le Lion devenu vieux". With a semantic approach and the research method used in this research is a qualitative descriptive research method, which analyzes the meaning and meaning of the sentences in the fable.

Memahami Fenomena Konten Sedekah dalam Perspektif Matius 6:1-4

Almsgiving content on various social media platforms is an interesting social phenomenon to study, especially based on the perspective of Matthew 6:1-4. As a text that is influenced by the background of religious and cultural communities, Matthew has a unique way of maintaining the continuity of the ideals of his community. An interpretation model that utilizes the help of social sciences will be beneficial in understanding the ideals of the community that influenced Matthew. From the results of applying the social science way of thinking to the text of Mat 6:1-4, two important things must be understood. First, the teaching of almsgiving is a religious obligation. Second, the teachings on almsgiving aim to create “an egalitarian society” and avoid damaging the recipient's reputation socially, culturally, or religiously. Almsgiving content featuring fictitious and animated characters and storylines is offered as an alternative to responding to this phenomenon.

Sankofa, Pets, and Familiars: How Animal Characters Encourage Interspecies Decolonization, Liberation, and Kinship in Alice Walker’s The Temple of My Familiar

Sankofa, Pets, and Familiars: How Animal Characters Encourage Interspecies Decolonization, Liberation, and Kinship in Alice Walker’s The Temple of My Familiar

Grotesque works in children's theater texts

Theater is described as a form of human expression, and an important human necessity, through which the needs of individuals and societies are expressed, and an important mediator for the transfer of educational, social and intellectual dimensions. Hence, the importance of the child’s theater emerged as a guiding educational method that affects the child’s development educationally, emotionally, psychologically and socially through imaginative play that combines enjoyment and entertainment. The grotesque is one of the artistic methods that work to attract the attention of the recipient in theatrical texts that combine dissonance and contradiction in a dramatic act that combines the beautiful and the ugly, the honest and the false together as an expressive method for the theatrical text directed to the child. The first chapter (the methodological framework) dealt with the research problem that was identified in the following axis: What are the works of grotesques in children’s theater texts? The importance of research on the subject of grotesques is evident as it is a sensor that provides researchers and stakeholders in the field of children’s theater by shedding light on the concept of grotesques and its activities in his book the theatrical text directed to the child. Child . The researcher reached the most important results: 1-Presenting what is positive and negative in an objective manner within the drama of the theatrical text 2-The presence of animal and plant characters, which makes the text a kind of humanized plays

Development and adaptation of a strength-based job interview training tool for transition age youth on the autism spectrum using community engaged methods.

Kessler Foundation Strength Identification and Expression (KF-STRIDE) is a strength-based job interview training tool developed for young adults on the autism spectrum. The intervention is based on a positive psychology framework to increase knowledge of character strengths, and how to relate them to a future employer. The current study sought to evaluate the acceptability, usability and feasibility of KF-STRIDE, as well as to guide adaptations to improve the tool's ability to meet the needs of those on the spectrum. Mixed methods (post-intervention surveys, and semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders) were used to inform the evaluation and consequent adaptations of KF-STRIDE. The major findings of the study were that KF-STRIDE was found to be largely acceptable and usable. Importantly, however, our qualitative analysis revealed modifications that could help to better suit the needs of young adults on the spectrum, which included the incorporation of additional skills (i.e. etiquette, practicing hygiene) and more opportunities to practice job interviewing. Thus, we altered the implementation of the intervention to be web-based to improve accessibility. We incorporated the presence of an animated character to deliver the content, to eliminate the need for a highly trained interventionist. KF-STRIDE was modified to increase access by incorporating feedback from the autism community. Future directions include assessing the efficacy of KF-STRIDE in young adults on the spectrum to identify whether employment outcomes are improved after using the tool.