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This design-led research investigates the transfer of puppet stop-motion animators’ embodied skills from the physical workspace into a digital environment. The approach is to create a digital workspace that evokes an embodied animating experience and allows puppet stop-motion animators to work in it unencumbered. The insights and outcomes of the practical explorations are discussed from the perspective of embodied cognition. The digital workspace employs haptic technology, an advanced multi-modal interface technology capable of invoking the tactile, kinaesthetic and proprioceptive senses. The overall aim of this research is to contribute, to the Human-Computer Interaction design community, design considerations and strategies for developing haptic workspaces that can seamlessly transfer and accommodate the rich embodied knowledge of non-digital skillful practitioners. Following an experiential design methodology, a series of design studies in collaboration with puppet stop-motion animators led to the development of a haptic workspace prototype for producing stop-motion animations. Each design study practically explored the transfer of different aspects of the puppet stop-motion animation practice into the haptic workspace. Beginning with an initial haptic workspace prototype, its design was refined in each study with the addition of new functionalities and new interaction metaphors which were always developed with the aim to create and maintain an embodied animating experience. The method of multiple streams of reflection was proposed as an important design tool for identifying, understanding and articulating design insights, empirical results and contextual considerations throughout the design studies. This thesis documents the development of the haptic workspace prototype and discusses the collected design insights and empirical results from the perspective of embodied cognition. In addition, it describes and reviews the design methodology that was adopted as an appropriate approach towards the design of the haptic workspace prototype.

Detta arbete har försökt besvara hur en animerad film kan förklara tekniska funktioner i ett stridsfordon för att underlätta förståelsen för hur fordonstypen generellt fungerar, hos en allmän svenskspråkig målgrupp med varierande förkunskaper. Arbete belyser den kritik som finns mot användandet av animation i undervisande syfte. För att sedan titta på hur den kritiken besvarats av senare forskning, främst inom kognitionsvetenskap, där man diskuterar hur animation kan ha en undervisande funktion. För att finna exempel på hur forskningen kan appliceras på skapandet av animation i praktiken gjordes analyser av animationer som försöker förklara tekniska funktioner i stridsvagnar. Dessutom har en gestaltning som syftar till att generellt förklara en stridsvagn för en allmän svensktalande målgrupp, tagits fram i samarbete med Sveriges försvarsfordonsmuseum Arsenalen. Gestaltningen består av en fyra och en halv minut lång, animerad film och heter Hur fungerar en stridsvagn? Filmen visades för fem personer som med olika hög förkunskap på området stridsvagnar. Sedan intervjuades personerna om upplevelsen av filmen, och för att se mycket de hade lärt sig av den. Resultaten visade tendenser på att, hastigheten på animationen, detaljnivå i maneret och på vilket sätt animationen leder åskådaren genom informationen påverkar den kognitiva belastning som åskådaren utsätts för. Detta ledde till förslag på hur man kan förbättra gestaltningen för att reducera denna kognitiva belastning.

I detta arbete undersöks det huruvida personer kan placera in animationsklipp, som skapats efter de skillnader som analyserats, i rätt kultur. För att besvara frågan har först en litteraturstudie genomförts som fokuserar på områdena kroppsspråk och kulturskillnader. Åtta animationer med fyra olika slags rörelser har skapats med ledning av studien, fyra av dem är influerade av japanskt kroppsspråk och fyra är influerade av amerikanskt kroppsspråk. Dessa animationsklipp utvärderades sedan genom en kvalitativ underöksning där det visade sig att de animationer vars rörelser är influerade av japanskt kroppsspråk var lättast att känna igen.

This creative project explores engaging patrons of art by exploiting some of the postmodern methods employed in contemporary society. The methods discussed include appropriation, pastiche, and the negation of history. These techniques are used to engage viewers in conversation by their use in Motion Graphics; the medium in which the creative project artwork was produced. Topics also include: why it is important for an artist to engage viewers, how to do so, and a short history of postmodern philosophy. / Department of Art

Ray tracing is a very powerful yet simple approach to image synthesis. It has generated some of the most realistic scenes to date. A comparative study of classical ray tracing, ray tracing with cones, and distributed ray tracing is made.The ray tracing techniques, classical ray tracing, ray tracing with cones, and distributed ray tracing, are explained, their differences are emphasized, and their approaches to modeling various lighting effects are explained and compared. / Department of Computer Science

This dissertation describes ESCAPE (Expert Systems in Computer Animation Production Environments), a multi-agent animation system for building domain-oriented, rule-based visual programming environments. Much recent work in computer graphics has been concerned with producing behavioural animations of artificial life-forms mainly based on algorithmic approaches. This research indicates how, by adding an inference engine and rules that describe such behaviour, traditional computer animation environments can be enhanced. The comparison between using algorithmic approaches and using a rule-based approach for representing multi-agent worlds is not based upon their respective claims to completeness, but rather on the ease with which end users may express their knowledge and control their animations with a minimum of technical knowledge. An environment for the design of computer animations incorporating an expert system approach is described. In addition to direct manipulation of objects on the screen, the environment allows users to describe behavioural rules based upon both the physical and non-physical attributes of objects. These rules can be interpreted to suggest the transition from stage to stage or to automatically produce a longer animation. The output from the system can be integrated into a commercially available 3D modelling and rendering package. Experience indicates that a hybrid environment, mixing algorithmic and rule-based approaches, would be very promising and offer benefits in application areas such as creating realistic background scenes and modelling human beings or animals either singly or in groups. A prototype evaluation system and three different domains are described and illustrated with preliminary animated images.

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Abstract Japanese anime being an important part of modern and contemporary popular visual culture, its aesthetic merits, its roots in Japanese visual arts as well as its rich symbology derived from Japanese folkloristic, literary and religious themes are worth investigating. This research aims to track the visual links between Edo and Meiji period monster art (y??kai-ga) paintings and modern day anime by concentrating on the works of Edo and Meiji period painters and the post-war period animation and manga series Gegegeno Kitaro, created by Mizuki Shigeru. Some of the Japanese origins of anime and manga imagery can be traced back to the early 12th century Ch??j?? Giga animal scrolls, where comic art and narrative pictures first appear. However, more recent sources are found in woodblock prints of the late Edo period. These prints are the forerunners of manga in that dialogues appear with the image, generally no anatomical details are given nor are they in perspective, but often a mood is expressed in a cartoon-like manner. The visual rendering of y??kai (monsters) is a Japanese cultural phenomenon: y??kai paintings originate in the Muromachi period, and take up part of the visual arts of that era. The distinct monster (y??kai) imagery emerging in the late Edo to early Meiji periods is the focus of this research. Investigating the Gegegeno Kitaro series, the study pinpoints the visual roots of the animation characters in the context of y??kai folklore and Edo and Meiji period monster painting traditions. Being a very popular series consisting of numerous episodes broadcast from the 1960s to the present time, by analyzing the changing images related to the representation of monsters in the series the study documents the changes in the perception of monsters in this time period, while it reflects on the importance of Mizuki??s work in keeping visual traditions alive and educating new audiences about folklore by recasting y??kai imagery in modern day settings in an innovative way. Additionally, by analyzing and comparing character, set, costume and mask design, plot and storyline of y??kai-themed films, the study attempts to shed light on the roles the representations of y??kai have been assigned in post-war Japanese cinema.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1989. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-57).