I chose a title related to body language for my thesis, so I’ll look for more papers in that direction over the next few weeks to support it and clarify the subject more.
Here are my research notes:
Title:
Discerning Emotion Through Movement: A study of body language in portraying emotion in animation
Larsson, P. (2014) Discerning emotion through movement: A study of body language in portraying emotion in animation
- According to researchers, up to 93% of human communication comprises body language. Facial expressions take up a big part of this, but subtle changes in posture, the placement of the head and shoulders, and what someone’s hands are doing are also important.
- The basic knowledge of animation is a starting point for animators everywhere. However, the endless supply of documented realistic movement might confuse the animators to overlook body language as a tool, so their animations lack character.
- This paper will test the expressive non-verbal language of a faceless animated character and show fresh new animators how much can be said with very little.
- The placement of the shoulders is vital to the posture, and tension in the body indicates negative feelings. Low tension means relaxed shoulders and very low tension means no tension.
Head
- The head’s orientation can indicate many things, including interest, lack of interest, and a sign of distancing. A slightly bowed head might indicate submissiveness, while a strong bow forward might indicate pain or sorrow.
Hand placement
- The placement of hands indicates quite clearly how a person feels. They can be relaxed hanging down the sides, or if sitting down, placed in the lap, or a more controlled and deliberate tension which balls the hands into fists.
Arms
Arms, posture, and feet can indicate a person’s feelings, such as confidence, purpose or worry.
Posture
- A positive body posture is straight-backed with the shoulders in a neutral or pushed-back state, whereas a negative body posture is either tensed or slumped. There are many ways of displaying either, including slumped, closed, sorrowful, or aggressive body postures.
Open or Closed
Open body language indicates openness, confidence, and a willingness to talk. Closed body language indicates negativity, defensiveness, and a desire to not be disturbed.
This article also mentions that using the four emotions of anger, happiness, rage, and sadness to study the differences in body language gives more intuitive results.
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Title:
3D Character Animation Using Sign Language
Alves, A.C. (2017) 3D character animation using sign language
- Communication has been important since the dawn of humanity, and language is an evolved form of communication with a set of rules for transmitting information in a structured and traditional way. However, communication is only effective when all participants speak the same language.
- Communication barriers can negatively affect many aspects of the lives of affected individuals. For example, in Portugal, two other native languages are spoken: Milanese and Portuguese Sign Language (LGP)
- Hearing loss limits an individual’s ability to communicate through spoken language and can lead to loneliness, isolation, and frustration.
- Professional associations provide sign language education and interpreters for news, events, conferences, and meetings to empower hard-of-hearing individuals to always be able to communicate with society.
This thesis addresses the communication limitations that today’s deaf individuals suffer by using natural language processing techniques to decompose Portuguese sentences into equivalent symbols in Portuguese sign language. A system called 3DSL was developed to demonstrate the feasibility of this approach.
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Title:
“Panawa” animation movement designs Rat character with a human personality
Aulia, E. and Aditya, C. (2017) “Panawa” Animation Movement Design: Rat character with human …, “Panawa” animation movement design: Rat character with human personality
- In animation, emotions can be expressed through movements that convey information about objects. Body language and facial expressions can also be used to reinforce feelings.
- When designing the movements of a rat, it is necessary to have an in-depth understanding of the character, which requires an understanding of the character’s background, physical condition, nature and habits, situations experienced, psychology and sociology, etc.
- To design the actions of a mouse character with human characteristics, it is necessary to combine the features of the mouse with human body language.