Thesis (M. Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes special report study entitled :Media art + / space. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Murdoch University, 2008. / Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts and Education. Invitation to exhibition titled: In the eye of the beholder, in back of thesis. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 116-118).

Thesis (M.A.(Hons))--University of Wollongong, 2004. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references: leaf 112-119.

Thesis (PhD) -- AUT University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references. Also held in print (413 p. : col. ill. ; 26 cm.) in the Archive at the City Campus (T 760.117 HO)

Thesis (M.Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes special report study entitled :Media art + / space. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

This study focused on game physics, an area of computer game design where physics is applied in interactive computer software. The purpose of the research was a fresh analysis of game physics in order to prove that its current usage is limited and requires advancement. The investigations presented in this dissertation establish constructive principles to advance game physics design. The main premise was that transdisciplinary approaches provide significant value. The resulting designs reflected combined goals of game developers, artists and physicists and provide novel ways to incorporate physics into games. The applicability and user impact of such new game physics across several target audiences was thoroughly examined. In order to explore the transdisciplinary nature of the premise, valid evidence was gathered using a broad range of theoretical and practical methodologies. The research established a clear definition of game physics within the context of historical, technological, practical, scientific, and artistic considerations. Game analysis, literature reviews and seminal surveys of game players, game developers and scientists were conducted. A heuristic categorization of game types was defined to create an extensive database of computer games and carry out a statistical analysis of game physics usage. Results were then combined to define core principles for the design of unconventional new game physics elements. Software implementations of several elements were developed to examine the practical feasibility of the proposed principles. This research prototype was exposed to practitioners (artists, game developers and scientists) in field studies, documented on video and subsequently analyzed to evaluate the effectiveness of the elements on the audiences. The findings from this research demonstrated that standard game physics is a common but limited design element in computer games. It was discovered that the entertainment driven design goals of game developers interfere with the needs of educators and scientists. Game reviews exemplified the exaggerated and incorrect physics present in many commercial computer games. This “pseudo physics” was shown to have potentially undesired effects on game players. Art reviews also indicated that game physics technology remains largely inaccessible to artists. The principal conclusion drawn from this study was that the proposed new game physics advances game design and creates value by expanding the choices available to game developers and designers, enabling artists to create more scientifically robust artworks, and encouraging scientists to consider games as a viable tool for education and research. The practical portion generated tangible evidence that the isolated “silos” of engineering, art and science can be bridged when game physics is designed in a transdisciplinary way. This dissertation recommends that scientific and artistic perspectives should always be considered when game physics is used in computer-based media, because significant value for a broad range of practitioners in succinctly different fields can be achieved. The study has thereby established a state of the art research into game physics, which not only offers other researchers constructive principles for future investigations, but also provides much-needed new material to address the observed discrepancies in game theory and digital media design.

A Research Report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the Degree of Masters of Arts in Digital Animation at the University of the Witwatersrand (School of Digital Arts) Johannesburg, South Africa / In recent years, the quest for capturing authentic emotion convincingly in computer generated (CG) characters to assist exceedingly complex narrative expressions in modern cinema has intensified. Conveying human emotion in a digital human-like character is widely accepted to be the most challenging and elusive task for even the most skilled animators. Contemporary filmmakers have increasingly looked to complex digital tools that essentially manipulate the visual design of cinema through innovative techniques to reach levels of undetectable integration of CG characters. In trying to assess how modern cinema is pursuing the realistic integration of CG human-like characters in digital film with frenetic interest despite the risk of box office failure associated with the uncanny valley, this report focuses on the progress of the advances in the technique of facial motion capture. The uncanny valley hypothesis, based on a theory by Sigmund Freud, was coined in 1970 by Japanese robotics professor, Masahiro Mori. Mori suggested that people are increasingly comfortable with robots the more human-like they appear, but only up to a point. At that turning point, when the robot becomes too human-like, it arouses feelings of repulsion. When movement is added to this equation, viewers’ sense of the uncanny is heightened when the movement is deemed to be unreal. Motion capture is the technique of mimicking and capturing realistic movement by utilising technology that enables the process of translating a live actor’s performance into a digital performance. By capturing and transferring the data collected from sensors placed on a body suit or tracked from a high definition video, computer artists are able to drive the movement of a corresponding CG character in a 3-Dimensional (3D) programme. The attention of this study is narrowed to the progress of the techniques developed during a prolific decade for facial motion capture in particular. Regardless of the conflicting discourse surrounding the use of motion capture technology, these phenomenal improvements have allowed filmmakers to overcome that aspect of the uncanny valley associated with detecting realistic movement and facial expression. The progress of facial motion capture is investigated through the lens of selected films released during the period of 2001 to 2012. The two case studies, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) and Avatar (2009) were chosen for their individual achievement and innovative techniques that introduced new methods of facial capture. Digital images are said to undermine the reality status of cinematic images by challenging the foundation of long held theories of cinematic realist theory. These theories rooted in the indexical basis of photography, have proved to be the origin of contemporary viewers' notion of cinematic realism. However, the relationship between advanced digital effects and modern cinematic realism has created a perceptual complexity that warrants closer scrutiny. In addressing the paradoxical effect that photo-real cinematic realism is having on the basic comprehension of realism in film, the history of the seminal claims made by recognized realist film theorists is briefly examined.

Creature design and sculpture is about representing life with three dimensions. To begin designing a creature, the process begins by looking at real life. Studies of existing wildlife and anatomy reference provided the foundation for the creation process. The goal of this project was to study creature design and attempt creating feasible results. The background and location origin of these creatures are based on the environmental location of Arizona. The goal was creating and rendering four creatures with the attempt of achieving fantasy realism.

Η παρούσα εργασία αποτελεί την καταγραφή μιας διδακτικής παρέμβασης που εμπλέκει το σχολείο και ειδικά την πρωτοσχολική ηλικία με τη δημιουργία σύγχρονων έργων εικαστικής τέχνης με τη βοήθεια του ηλεκτρονικού υπολογιστή. / This work is a record of a teaching intervention involving the school and especially the Elementary First age by creating contemporary works of visual art using the computer.

The mirror, central to traditional Western epistemology and representation, has shattered. Yet its metaphors, mechanisms, operations and poetics continue to powerfully shape and evocatively describe, contemporary Western culture. The exhibition, After Reflection, investigates realist representation in a post-mirror paradigm, through paintings, prints and projections that incorporate perceptual plays, virtual imaging and digital modeling. The dissertation charts the history of the mirror metaphor and its reconfiguration through post-modernity. It suggests that while the metaphor may be superceded it remains useful and evocative but only if considered in the form of a mirror-ball rather than as a planar mirror. The dissertation examines the mirror metaphor and its relationship to a wide selection of aspects crucial to the arrangement of contemporary Western culture, art and space. / The thesis is structured as a mirror-ball, in small fragments that both reflect on and illuminate aspects of the topic. The dissertation is thus divided into various ‘Shards’ – broad subject headings derived from the primary mechanisms and poetics of the mirror. Within each shard are a varied number of ‘Rays’ – lines of illumination arising from each shard that impact on particular aspects of Western culture. / The exhibition After Reflection includes further speculations around the theme of the mirror and with the arrangement of contemporary space – both pictorial and actual. It is not intended to illustrate the dissertation but to be an additional supplement that visually elaborates on issues enmeshed and parallel to those addressed in the dissertation. The works have all been completed during the period of the candidature (from March 2000) They include six oil paintings, a set of Lightjet photographs (from the “Echohouse’ series) generated from 3d modelling programs and then face-mounted to Perspex. There is an additional three larger scale Lightjet photographs from another series. Finally there are projected works. One is a self contained DVD projection and the other is Mirror Land - a large scale 3d animation covering two wall and projected in a chiasmatic arrangement. Both works feature an endless looping repetition. / All the works play with metaphoric aspects of the mirror and examine the construction of space in contemporary Western culture. This space has become increasingly rationalized since the Renaissance and mirror a more general abstraction whereby the real is evermore preceded by simulations. The work looks at the mirror land and suggests a mode of realism capable of addressing the situation where the real has increasingly been reconfigured into representation.