From Analog to Virtual: Visual Stylizations of Humanoid Characters Across Media

Visual stylization and its impact on different aspects of the perception of digital human beings are commonly debated. This study investigated how fictional and non-fictional characters are represented in various media from the perspective of digital humanoid character design. Based on Zangwill's theory of Moderate Aesthetic Formalism, this study focused on the formalistic aspect of visual analysis and interpretation of media artifacts ranging from older media such as paintings to newer media, such as animations, interactive video games and mobile apps. This paper also explores several case studies of how humanoid digital characters are represented via visual stylizations across different media. This article underlines the importance of visual stylization as an opportunity to find unique and innovative ways of communicating with visual means

The Evaluation of Stylized Facial Expressions

Stylized rendering aims to abstract information in an image making it useful not only for artistic but also for visualization purposes. Recent advances in computer graphics techniques have made it possible to render many varieties of stylized imagery efficiently. So far, however, few attempts have been made to characterize the perceptual impact and effectiveness of stylization. In this paper, we report several experiments that evaluate three different stylization techniques in the context of dynamic facial expressions. Going beyond the usual questionnaire approach, the experiments compare the techniques according to several criteria ranging from introspective measures (subjective preference) to task-dependent measures (recognizability, intensity). Our results shed light on how stylization of image contents affects the perception and subjective evaluation of facial expressions

An Appetite for the Tasteless: An Evaluation of Off-Color Humor in Adult Animations and Video Games, Presented Through a Proposed Interactive Narrative via a Procedurally Generated Material Library

Off-color humor has propelled adult animation into its Golden Age. The success of this genre has prompted media studios to begin developing original series for subscription video-on-demand services. The technology used for these over the top (OTT) streaming services have improved to the point that providers have begun developing cloud-based gaming. These improvements, along with developments in rendering systems, have made it possible to create interactive media across both video and gaming platforms using similar assets. This document will detail the successes of adult animation and the proposal for more interactive narrative media within this category. Accompanying the text will be a procedural material library fitting within the theme and style of adult animation. In recent years media studios have been adapting to tools for a fully procedural texture creation workflow. The focus will be on the creation and implementation of a base material library, as well as examine the benefits and capabilities of said materials across multiple entertainment industries

Dynamic Stylized Shading Primitives

Honorable Mention in RenderingInternational audienceShading appearance in illustrations, comics and graphic novels is designed to convey illumination, material and surface shape characteristics at once. Moreover, shading may vary depending on different configurations of surface distance, lighting, character expressions, timing of the action, to articulate storytelling or draw attention to a part of an object. In this paper, we present a method that imitates such expressive stylized shading techniques in dynamic 3D scenes, and which offers a simple and flexible means for artists to design and tweak the shading appearance and its dynamic behavior. The key contribution of our approach is to seamlessly vary appearance by using a combination of shading primitives that take into account lighting direction, material characteristics and surface features. We demonstrate their flexibility in a number of scenarios: minimal shading, comics or cartoon rendering, glossy and anisotropic material effects; including a variety of dynamic variations based on orientation, timing or depth. Our prototype implementation combines shading primitives with a layered approach and runs in real-time on the GPU

Animation or Cartoons: An American Dilemma

This project attempts to elucidate the connection between animation and preconceptions about appropriate age demographics in the United States. It endeavors to demonstrate that animation has primarily remained a children’s medium because of contingent contextual factors, rather than elements inherent to the medium, and that its evolution over time is proof of its merits as a medium. Through an exploration of the Golden Age of animation between the late 1930s and the late 1950s, as well as an exploration of animation between 1988 and the present, it uses various examples within film, television, and theatrical shorts to show limitations placed on the medium. These limitations caused the medium to be marketed towards children and to be perceived as being only for children, creating a paradigm in which more mature explorations were infrequent. Both the preconceptions and the consequences of the contextual factors that caused this remain to this day, but American animation’s history has provided evidence that these strictures are not inescapable

Appealing avatars from 3D body scans: Perceptual effects of stylization

Advances in 3D scanning technology allow us to create realistic virtual avatars from full body 3D scan data. However, negative reactions to some realistic computer generated humans suggest that this approach might not always provide the most appealing results. Using styles derived from existing popular character designs, we present a novel automatic stylization technique for body shape and colour information based on a statistical 3D model of human bodies. We investigate whether such stylized body shapes result in increased perceived appeal with two different experiments: One focuses on body shape alone, the other investigates the additional role of surface colour and lighting. Our results consistently show that the most appealing avatar is a partially stylized one. Importantly, avatars with high stylization or no stylization at all were rated to have the least appeal. The inclusion of colour information and improvements to render quality had no significant effect on the overall perceived appeal of the avatars, and we observe that the body shape primarily drives the change in appeal ratings. For body scans with colour information, we found that a partially stylized avatar was most effective, increasing average appeal ratings by approximately 34%

A critical assessment of the animator's artistic ownership over motion captured performances

The intention of this research report is to critically assess, as well as theoretically expand upon, the increasingly contentious area regarding character performance in computer generated (CG) animation for feature films that utilize motion capture technology. This paper specifically aims to investigate whether or not the use of motion capture in live-action visual effects, in the pursuit of creating CG characters that are as realistic as possible, has eroded the artistic autonomy of character animators and their artistic ownership of the performances of these characters. Through the analysis and comparison of pertinent case studies, it should become apparent that this perception is not absolute, and is largely dependent on the kinds of characters intended to be portrayed and the kind of film that they are to be portrayed in. It will be shown that motion capture can be a very effective collaborative tool not only in the relationship between directors and actors, but also between animators and actors under the creative supervision of directors

Ink-and-Ray: Bas-Relief Meshes for Adding Global Illumination Effects to Hand-Drawn Characters

We present a new approach for generating global illumination renderings of hand-drawn characters using only a small set of simple annotations. Our system exploits the concept of bas-relief sculptures, making it possible to generate 3D proxies suitable for rendering without requiring side-views or extensive user input. We formulate an optimization process that automatically constructs approximate geometry sufficient to evoke the impression of a consistent 3D shape. The resulting renders provide the richer stylization capabilities of 3D global illumination while still retaining the 2D handdrawn look-and-feel. We demonstrate our approach on a varied set of handdrawn images and animations, showing that even in comparison to ground truth renderings of full 3D objects, our bas-relief approximation is able to produce convincing global illumination effects, including self-shadowing, glossy reflections, and diffuse color bleeding