Meet the Puppet Masters - Carlos Grangel

They gave him an actual horse whilst designing for this movie, like damn.

   Carlos Grangel is a Spanish-born illustrator and character designer for animated films who has worked on some of the most famous titles in modern cinema, including 2D classics such as We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story (1993), The Prince of Egypt (1998), The Road to El Dorado (2000), Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002) to 3D and stop-motion works like Shark Tale (2004), Madagascar (2005), Corpse Bride (2005) and Pirates! Band of Misfits (2012). It is during Meet the Puppet Masters during 7th November event that I had the opportunity to have a closer look into his beginnings as a comic book artist to the amazing character designer that he has become today.

   To make that big leap from drawing for a German comic series (Which was still pretty successful) to designing characters for some of today's most famous animated films, Carlos needed to be versatile when it came to his art style to survive in the business. During his free time, Carlos would study animation on his own, to better improve his skills as a character designer (Having joked that the studio would have fired him had they actually seen any of his exercises). Turnarounds for characters had especially taken awhile to perfect, but they would prove to be one of the most important aspects for character design later on.

   To differentiate their art style from Disney, Dreamworks needed to push the shapes of their characters and in a way, make them more 'graphic' (Meaning much more exaggerated and cartoony, so keep your mind out of the gutter boi). Aside from turnarounds, silhouettes of the character also helped visualise each of their outline and personality. As character designers, the more references drawn by them, the easier it would make work for the animators (So try to get as many angles, expressions and poses done of a character when designing them before they are sent off to get animated... AKA, the concept bible).

   When working on The Prince of Egypt, it had taken 2 months for the character designers to finalise Moses' design. For such a film (And Road to El Dorado), it was of course beneficial to do some proper researching for more historical accuracy and genuine-ness-ness. Character lines ups helped in making sure that the art style would remain constant for all the characters (That's most definitely an issue many of us tend to face).

Carlos Grangel's character designs on cereal boxes,
consider it his signature or trademark if you will~

   Unlike past titles, Corpse Bride would be the first (Perhaps?) film where he would work from beginning to end. They needed Carlos' skills in bringing Tim Burton's sketches (As nice as they were in their scribbly goodness) to life, giving them a more solid and definite shape so that puppets could actually be made of them. He would also later on see how the characters would turn out when the model makers commenced their part of the job, and was in a way a supervisor of sorts in making sure that all the characters would turn out right.

   Carlos does not necessarily work on sequels, seeing as character designers aren't normally needed as the designs of the characters are already established. An interesting statement seeing as sequels tend to vary so much in quality. And while How to Train Your Dragon 2 definitely had a lot of heart and soul put into it, I did feel that one of the film's glaring issues was the fact that there wasn't a constant style used for all the dragon designs, making them all too different from one another. But going back to that statement, sequels tend to bring up new characters (Lame or not, it doesn't matter), character designers are surely still needed, especially those that had worked on the first title... or is this a Jim Carrey thing?

   So to end off this post, important things to consider if you want to become a character designer: Turnarounds, Silhouettes, Reference, Concept Bibles... PUSH IT.

Attempted Interviews

   From the beginning, the games of Quantic dreams would be focused upon in my essay on performance in video games (Seeing as David Cage had always aimed to make every game title he worked on an interactive movie of sorts), so around the 5th of November I had this message sent out to them in hopes of getting a response... no luck, though, but it was worth a try (Maybe I should have given Naughty Dogs a try too... wouldn't hurt to give it a try this weekend, I suppose, but if Quantic Dreams was too busy to respond, something tells me Naughty Dogs will be too).

Dear Quantic Dreams,

   I am a 3rd year animation student at Leeds College of Art, I have always been the biggest fans of your works and was wondering if I could do a simple email interview with you for my Dissertation? The topic I happen to be writing about is acting in video game animation. And seeing as motion capture plays a pretty huge role when it comes to the narrative of most games these days, I was hoping to know more about how you go about in creating an empathetic performance for your characters?

   Thank you kindly!

Yours Sincerely,

   Rebecca Wong Si-Lin

   And seeing as Jamaal Bradley made up a big part of my argument (Much like Ed Hooks was), it only seemed right to interview him if possible, but I suppose he himself is also busy on working on numerous projects at the moment seeing that he has always been really high in demand:

Hello Mr Jamaal,

   My name is Rebecca Wong Si-Lin and presently, I am studying my final year of Animation at Leeds College of Art and am presently working on a dissertation on Acting in Video Games. As embarrassing as it is to admit (Though then again I am incredibly slow with most things), I was only able to learn about you and your amazing career through LeSean Thomas' tumblr about a year or so back since I began my studies in animation, but have since then become a huge fan of yours!

   But my apologies for drifting off there, back to the subject at hand, I was hoping whether you could answer a few questions through emails?

   After reading Ed Hook's somewhat disheartening (But nonetheless still incredibly insightful) opinion on the future of acting in video games in his book "Acting for Animators", I was so glad that I was able to chance upon your interview with Nancy Beiman in "Animated Performance" and see a considerably more uplifting outlook on the progression of game cinematics. 
   
   I was wondering however, since that interview (Which should be more than 5 years since), has your opinion changed as well? Do you think there will be more video games to come that will have strong performances that will evoke just as much emotion and empathy to the audience as other forms of media do?

   Would you mind also sharing with me some of the game titles that you have particularly enjoyed when it came to the area of animated performance and storytelling?

   Aside from the more primary focus on gameplay back in the day, what do you think were the aspects that restrained older video game titles form giving a stronger performance (Is it writing? Graphics? Technology? Etc.) as compared to the games of today?

   Does your opinion still stand? Will games and film really have the same quality of character and animation in the future?

   Thank you kindly for taking the time to read my message, please have a wonderful day!

Yours Sincerely,

Rebecca Wong Si-Lin

Update: I gave it a shot and tried contacting Naughty Dogs after I had written this post, don't think I will be expecting a response from them however.

Survey Results

   In an attempt to gather more research, I released a survey out to my family, friends and peers on every social media I had in the past weeks to see what their views on video games are in the coming future. Knowing that this was very open ended, I did my best to make the questions as specific as possible (Especially as there is also a ten question limit for SurveyMonkey and all...)

   While I can't necessarily use most of these for my dissertation (Or perhaps I can, at least insert in few bits and pieces in there of my findings in hopes that it would aid my practical piece as well) seeing as they are all so incredibly different from one another (Also due to the lack in narrowing it down to a specific target audience), it was interesting seeing everyone's views on the matter, from those that play games on their phone to kill some time every once in awhile, to those that make video gaming a huge part of their lives. I will still try to analyse these results a little when I can, as their views on the Uncanny Valley will still be of some help into my research. 

   And if I do get any more results, I will be posting them up here. Also, if you haven't take it yet, here's the link!

   Anyway, here are the results:

How often do you play video games? List down one or a few of your favourites and explain why.

1. everyday 
2. Quite a lot unless I have coursework to do. A few favourites are: Assassins Creed Black Flag - I love the world building and the amount of places that you can explore and actually achieve in the game is amazing. A lot of stuff to collect, interesting side quests, and I got quite attached to the main character through his personality, back story and characters he was friends with. Wind Waker - Again the world building and the exploration are amazing. Even though this is quite an old game its still by far one of my all time favourites. The plot is simple but its interesting and gets you hooked. I'm a sucker for the Legend of Zelda games. PT Demo - although it is a demo, I loved every minute of it. I liked how you were kept in this same room where everything was kept the same everytime the loop kickstarted again. It made it eerie and more scary. The use of sound and lighting played a huge role for the game as it wouldn't have been as scary without these elements.
3. Once a day. Halo for its gunplay. Bioshock for its environment design. The Legend of Zelda for game design.
4. I play them twice a week. My favourites are "Final Fantasy XIII" series and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II. The reasons why they are my favourites is the interactive gameplay and the graphics.
5. Occasionally. Odin Sphere for its deft handling of story, characters and art. Okami, for the characterisation, unique gameplay and painting-like world.
6. I can honestly say that I pretty much play video games all the time. Some of my favorites are Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Undertale, Bastion, Transistor, and Journey. DA and ME, are my faves because I'm a sucker for games with character creation and I love most of the characters. Undertale because it's got amazing music and equally amazing characters. Bastion and Transistor because the art is amazing, music is A+, the stories always make me cry, and the game's are always narrated in interesting ways. Journey's art was amazing, the story was interesting (once you could figure it out), music was out of this world, game play mechanics were really interesting, and how they wanted you to play with other people without using your voice, I thought it was really cool.
7. I play video games constantly. My favourites include Metal Gear Solid, because of its memorable characters and strong story that blends itself well with the gameplay; Legend of Zelda because each game is fun in their own way, and age well. Chrono Trigger is my favourite RPG because it has a huge branching story, amazing graphics that age very well, and the best gameplay for an RPG around. Resident Evil 4 for the same reasons as MGS, plus a very smart blend of action and horror.
8. I play video games fairly often, on average once a day for about an hour. My favorite game is Okami, but some other liked games are the Sengoku BASARA series, the Dynasty/Samurai Warriors series, the Pokemon series, Soulcalibur series, and Undertale. I really like them for their unique character designs and their worldbuilding. The gameplay, of course, is quite good for all of the above as well.
9. Bayonetta - Interesting story, action-packed! Tales of Symphonia franchise - amazing narrative, typical Japanese RPG style Grand Theft Auto - open world, loads to do, storyline is great with ability to influence outcomes

Do you know what the Uncanny Valley is? Please give any form of explanation about it if you do and list some games you have come across that suffers from that issue.

1. no
2. Yes, when an object, animated or real, has an eerie resemblance to that of a human. Polar Express game, took the same evil looks as the movie, couldn't play it after the first few mins of gameplay. Can't think of anymore, tend to stay away from them.
3. That moment when you detect that something isn't quite human or alive. Anytime you stare at Commander Shepard's eyes.
4. Uncanny valley happens when a robotic or non living organism imitates real life action, which makes viewers feel uncomfortable. On certain cutscenes in Dissidia, the way the character's blink feels unnatural. The "Pirates of the Caribbean" characters in Kingdom Hearts II also have this issue.
5. The strange area when a representation of reality comes too near but is still too far from our understanding of it. It is not distant enough to be comforted by the differences, but too near to be in denial of its likeness. I'm not particularly attracted to realism in games, so I'm afraid I have nothing much to add here.
6. My basic understand is that video game characters look really human and it freaks people out. That's what I understand. If that's the case, Heavy Rain, Until Dawn, and Beyond: Two Souls are 3 that come to mind
7. I believe I do. It I believe a game that does kind of suffer from this is Silent Hill: Downpour, which does this unintentionally but its enemy designs are very uncreative for the game's creepy setting, and their animations and AI, especially with the Weeping Bat, were just goofy. Sonic 06 suffers by using really overblown HD FMV cutscenes that resemble Final Fantasy, when the game itself looks horrible. As well as the human characters looking way too realistic around the cartoony main characters.
8. The Uncanny Valley is when an object (or work of art, as in a video game) greatly resembles a human being, but does not look quite enough like a human being and thus triggers a response of disgust or fear from the viewer. I have not personally played any games that have this to a large extent, but I do know of some that exist. As for games that have slight uncanny valley, many of the created characters in Tecmo-Koei's Musou series have a slight uncanny valley effect to them, perhaps due to some face or outfit layouts not being suited to the created character face frame.
9. Yes, I guess it's that unusual and uncomfortable feeling you get when something doesn't feel quite right, usually down to awkwardly mimicked reality and distorted realism. Things like funfairs, puppets, and mannequins can be examples of this.

Are there any video games that you still enjoyed despite its issue with the Uncanny? If so, why?

1. not applicable
2. Until Dawn, even though the motion capture was crazy, it added to the atmosphere.
3. Mass Effect and Skyrim. Facial animation and conversations only make up a small part of gameplay and I could quickly move on.
4. Dissidia is one of the games I still like, in spite of this issue. I like to look at the visuals and textures.
5. The closest game I could perhaps bring up would be the later Final Fantasy series'. I enjoyed it mainly for the flashy and satisfying battle system and to some extent the customisation options of costuming. The uncanny valley is less intimidating when the game is padded with other unrealistic or middling aspects that distract from that disquieting realism.
6. Not really.
7. is something that differs entirely to what we are familiar with, and in film it is something withing that narrative that differs tonally to what the audience is accustomed to. A brilliant example of that is in Earthbound, which is a bright, jolly, and humorous game throughout, but at the end it intentionally becomes very dark and scary. It does not suffer from this but rather benefits from it. Deadly Premonition's dark tone is always killed by the very imperfect animations but that's one of the many reasons I enjoy that game. I find Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker's comic book style cutscenes way too visually jarring, when the gameplay is full 3D. It's still think the game makes up for it with a decent enough story and gameplay.
8. I still enjoy the Musou series quite a bit in spite of some created characters looking like scary human-dolls, haha. Mostly because the unique characters look good themselves and don't look unusual!
9. Dante's Inferno - story was great albeit a bit linear and felt a bit uncanny. Character (monsters especially) design was amazing! Fran Bow - interesting and creepy, but uncanny. Evil Within/Psycho Break - Bit of a bland story and incredibly weird but action packed and interesting to play. Outlast - horror game, amazing story

How important is it for video games these days to have a strong narrative?

1. Very
2. dont know
3. Extremely. It wouldn't be a good game without strong storytelling. Games are a form of escapism, we want to get drawn into the story and unravel the plot till the end, it must be gripping for the player to continue. I would rather have low graphics with an amazing plot rather than outstanding graphics with hardly any plot.
4. Important.
5. From a scale of 1(least important) - 10(Most important), I would give an 8.
6. Everyone and their dog can shit out a playable game these days. However not everyone can write good stories to make the game worth playing. Even a dull game can be livened up with a good story that takes the dullness and makes it part of a bigger and better whole.
7. Nowadays, if everything else in the game but characters and narrative is strong, it's a good game (ie. Bloodborne, Souls games etc). Personally, I think it's important to have a strong narrative.
8. I think video games tend to benefit from narratives, however I would not say they should be a selling point for games these days so it's not important.
9. It depends on the type of game. If it is a game meant to be played solely for the gameplay or to be played in bits (such as a puzzle-based handheld title), story does not need to be important. For games on home consoles or PC, story should be as much of a core focus as gameplay.
10. For me not too important as I get bored easily with games. GTA franchise was the only title that I stuck by all the way that had a strong and successful narrative. Maybe that's why it's so popular? I prefer lots of content over a good narrative, but GTA has always had both.

While a mixture is always good, would you choose a game for its gameplay or for its story? 

1. Gameplay
2. no idea
3. Most likely it's story, but if its a sequel I'll get for gameplay.
4. Gameplay.
5. For its story.
6. Depends on the game, and my expectations from it. I have chosen games for their gameplay, despite the lack of story- or games for their story, despite the terrible gameplay. Although I am more likely to finish games with adequate gameplay, rather than games with adequate story, the latter is more fulfilling and memorable than the former.
7. Most definitely the story.
8. If I had to choose it would be gameplay
9. It depends on the type of game. For RPGs, whether in the "Japanese" style or "Western" style, story is paramount. For action games or fighting games, gameplay is more important- but story is still more than welcome.
10. Gameplay definitely! If a game is enjoyable and can be played over and over that doesn't require you to complete a story, then I think it has more appeal, especially for those of us that get bored easily and prefer to free-roam and mess about, like Halo forge mode, Minecraft, GTA online, Elder Scrolls Online etc.

What are your thoughts on photo realistic (Eg, Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls) and more stylised games (Telltales: The Walking Dead, Journey)? Do you have a preference between these two?

1. Goosebumps
2. no comment
3. It all depends on the narrative but I personally prefer the stylised games, its brings something different to the story and game play.
4. They both have their moments and each lends itself to their own gameplay design.
5. The photo realistic games tend to tackle more serious issue and emotions as compared to stylised games. I personally prefer photo realistic.
6. Stylised games. I play games not for more reality, but an escape from the banality of it.
7. I think they're both very interesting. Photo realistic shows how far video game making technology and such has come and I think that's really cool. Stylized games like Telltales games, I'm personally not into because they mess with my eyes, Journey was super pleasant though.
8. I prefer stylised games. Photo realism isn't, it can certainly still have art style built around it, but I just find stylisation more appealing to video games.
9. I prefer stylised more than realistic. I notice many games I play have heavy anime influence. Realism is still a nice thing to have, of course.
10. Telltale games do a really good job in general when it comes to realism. The Game of Thrones game they did looked amazing. Realistic-looking games tend to be more believable, but more stylised and quirky-looking games with unique characters and an 'avant-garde' sort of look might tend to be successful among younger audiences as there's that element of imagination and surrealism.

Why do you think so many major game developers are going for the more photo realistic look when it comes to recent games?

1. Video effects are instant
2. more realism
3. I think its to make it seem more realistic, with the advancement of technology as well, they have all the tools to allow them to do this, Until Dawn as a recent example.
4. Photo real (technical) is arguably easier then highly stylised art direction (e.g. Wind Walker, Okami, Jet Grind)
5. It is due to the current capabilities of games engine since they are able to support better and able to store high resolution/photo realistic information. Also, they want to give players a sense of reality, especially on VR or simulation games.
6. Because it is a safe and easy choice, requires less guesswork, less visual development. Easy to shit out and not have to think too much about.
7. They want to drag the people in more, think that they're actually there, I guess? I don't really know to be honest.
8. I believe it's so that the games appeal to casual gamers, or audiences just getting into games, like they don't want to distance that audience too much from film. It's unlikely that a casual gamer will look at Okami and Call of Duty then pick up Okami, for instance.
9. It is likely that they feel it makes them seem more "adult" or "mature", so that they can lure in people who feel they are too old for cartoons and by extension cartoon-esque games.
10. With improved technological advances and a huge demand for games that have amazing graphics, I imagine developers would want to opt for a realistic style as that seems to be the target of competition at the moment - games are aiming to aesthetically 'wow' the audience. When GTA V came out (sorry, I love GTA so much!) everyone was fascinated by the detail and realism of the environments, characters, and physics. That sold so well and I think that was one of the main reasons - it looked so real!

In recent years, people have begun to analyse video games much like they would films and while this for some reason continues to be an argument among critics, are even seen as works of art. What are your thoughts on this?

1. Beside kids adults are into it so thus different demands..LIKE
2. great
3. I think it should definitely be a form of art or even interactive literature, at the end of the day you immerse yourself in this narrative, in the game, much like you would with a film, animation or book. They are all a representation of a reality that the creator has envisioned.
4. Video games and interactive media are indisputably art. And just as the medium is young and finding evolving, so to is the language to critique and dissect it. Unlike static art forms, games introduce a larger number of variables to their consumption. As such, the only question is not whether gaming is art, but what path it's school of examination will take.
5. It is great to have more exposure on various roles.
6. Works of creativity are always worthy of analysis or admiration. Art is meant to make you feel, and make you think. If a game is able to do that, why can't you call it art?
7. Hm, well I get why people do it but I personally don't really care about what other people think of games. I just wish people would stop tearing at each others throats over it. It's getting kinda ridiculous.
8. I believe we've far since reached the point in which games can be considered art. The games industry in the 90s was practically at the point film was at during the 1910s, when people were trying to prove this could be used to tell stories. A lot of games have challenged audiences and experimented enough for the medium to be considered an art form.
9. If the industry is to develop and not stagnate, criticism of games as art must be allowed. This includes criticizing more than just gameplay- but story, art direction, animation, music, voice direction/acting, and more. It also includes being critical of more social issues.
10. Video games are most definitely works of art! They provoke the same if not more intense emotions that traditional art, they engage us in the same way and allow us to interact with them unlike other forms of art. Designers, artists, modelers, programmers, and coders alike all make some form of art - art comes from the imagination and soul and video games are exactly that!

What would you actually like to see in the future of video game narratives?

1. Short to the point..
2. full explanation of how to play and what is the goal of the game
3. I want to see the next stage up of a game like Until Dawn, Until Dawn was great I loved how it was designed to make it appear like an interactive movie, but I would have loved to have seen more interesting endings that don't all depend on the entire house exploding (not saying anymore as spoilers). Would have been nice to have seen more substantial consequences etc.
4. Narrative informing gameplay and vice versa. Gaming is not film. It shares some similarities, but it would be a mistake to neglect the power of its original intent which is to afford the user control and agency. This participation is what separates gaming from all other media and should inform its evolution.
5. More interaction with players.
6. A more cohesive whole, between gameplay, aesthetics, story and characterisation. Showing a story rather than telling it, and characters that engage and grow with the player rather than a brainless ragdoll you fling through the game.
7. Honestly, I just want less white scruffy dudes with tortured pasts. I want more girls as game protags
8. More narratives that aim to challenge audiences and work with the gameplay, like the Mother, or Silent Hill series'.
9. More games set in Asia or Africa. Also, more games with female leads. I'd also like it if Western devs would give games set in Japan a try without fetishizing the setting (i.e., ninjas everywhere in a game not about ninjas, geishas everywhere in a game not about geisha, characters going "HONOR this, HONOR that" outside of the Edo period, etc.)
10. I'd like to see a greater level of interaction between the audience/player and the game through the use of augmented and virtual reality, much as the Oculus Rift allows the player to move their head and arms to react to the game. This will mean that narratives can be even more influenced by the audience and in the future who's to say we can't push the limits of gaming and create worlds that we're psychically capable of interacting with on a more sophisticated level? That could change the future of narrative in gaming.

Research from 'Hamlet on the Holodeck' by Janet H. Murray

Basic Details:
MURRAY, J. H. (1997), Hamlet on the Holodeck, NY: The Free Press.

21-22.

• Starting in the 1970s and 1980s, the same fears provoked by the... advent of film and television began to be expressed against videogames, which added interactivity to the sensory allures of sight, sound and motion.
• Critics have condemned the too-easy stimulation of electronic games as a threat to the more reflective delights of print culture.
• A prominent film critic, for instance, recently lamented the fact that his sons have deserted Dickens for shoot-'em-up computer games, which "offer a kind of narrative, but one that yields without resistance to the child's desire for instant gratification."

53.

• On the other hand, some game designers are making good use of film techniques in enhancing the dramatic power of their games.
• Myst (1993) achieves much of its immersive power through its sophisticated sound design. Each of the different areas of the game is characterised by distinctive ambient sounds, like the whistling of wind through the trees of the lapping of waves on the shore, that reinforce the reality of fantasy worlds, which are really just a succession of still images.
• ... a musical motif that gets darker and more foreboding with each step and reaches an emotional peak when I uncover a severed head. 

140.

• Stories do not require us to do anything except to pay attention as they are told.
• Games always involve some kind of activity and are often focused on the mastery of skills, whether the skill involves chess strategy or joystick twitching. Games generally use language only instrumentally ("checkmate", "ball four") rather than to convey subtleties of description or to communicate complex emotions.
• ... games are goal directed and structured around turn taking and keeping score. All of this would seem to have nothing to do with stories.
• ... narrative satisfaction can be directly opposed to game satisfaction, as the endings of Myst, widely hailed as the most artistically successful story puzzle of the early 1990s, make clear.

142.

• A game is a kind of abstract storytelling that resembles the world of common experience but compresses it in order to heighten interest.
• Whatever the content of the game itself, whatever out role within it, we are always the protagonists of the symbolic action.
• Even in games in which we are at the mercy of the dice, we are still enacting a meaningful drama.

145.

• Most of the stories currently told on the computer are based on the structure of a contest of skill.
• The interactor is given the role of a fighter or detective of some sort and is pitted against an opponent in a win/lose situation.
• ... computer games have developed multiple representations of the opponent, who may be another human player (as in the first videogame, Pong), a character embedded in the story (as in Pacman), and the programmer or game designer implicit in the game (as in Zork). 
• Contest games have also developed at least three different ways of situating the player: we can watch from a spectator perspective while operating out own avatar character or spaceship (as in Mortal Kombat); watch from a situated perspective while operating a character (as in Rebel Assault, where we see the vehicle we are operating as if we are following just behind it with a movie camera); or, most immersively, watch and act form a situated first-person viewpoint, as in Doom...

146.

• ... where we see the landscape of the game and our opponents coming toward us as if we are really present in space. These gaming conventions orient the interactor and make the action coherent. They are equivalent to a novelist's care with point of view or a director's attention to staging.
• Fighting games have also developed a sure-fire way of combining agency with immersion.
• It requires very little imaginative effort to enter such a world because the sense of agency is so direct.
• ... every object in a digital narrative, no matter how sophisticated the story, should offer the interactor as clear a sense of agency and as direct a connection to the immersive world as I felt in the arcade holding a six-shooter-shaped laser gun and blasting away at the outlaws in Mad Dog McCree.

147.

• ... the moral impact of enacting an opposing role is a promising sign of the serious dramatic potential of the fighting game.
• We need to find substitutes for shooting off a gun that will offer the same immediacy of effect but allow for more complex and engaging story content.
• We need to find ways of drawing a player so deeply into the situated point of view of a character that a change of position will raise important moral questions.
• We need to take advantage of the symbolic drama of the contest format to create suspense and dramatic tension without focusing the interactor on skill mastery.

Research from 'Aesthetic Theory and the Video Game' by Graeme Kirkpatrick Pt 1

Basic Details:
KIRKPATRICK, G. (2011), Aesthetic Theory and the Video Game, Manchester: Manchester University Press.

1.

• I argue that video games are not communications media in any standard sense but objects that furnish us with particular kinds of experience. 
• These experiences are a variety of game, or structured play, but they are also something more than this. What this 'more' is, what is consists in, is the enigma that has triggered the most heated academic debates about the video game and how we should study it and I argue that it is best understood as an historically specific instance of aesthetic form. 

2.

• It involves making the claim that video games are aesthetic objects before they are anything else, which has consequences for other parts of the discussion we want to have about them. 
• Most people agree, for example, that play or gameplay as it is referred to in connection with video games, is central to what people do with them and should inform our understanding of them in various ways. 

3.

• It is a conservative implication of ludology, for instance, that video games stand in the tradition of older games like chess or football and that it is only in light of this that we can see their true novelty. 
• Others find in them a source of cinematic innovations, with new viewing practices and new visual possibilities that extend the history of popular entertainments. An aesthetic approach finds itself in the, perhaps fortunate, position of seeming to claim that video games are art. 

11.

• Ludology is a branch of game studies centred mainly in Scandinavian universities that emphasizes the games of video games and rejects attempts to analyse them as 'narratives' or texts in which meaning plays the dominant, ordering role. 

12.

• ... the best way to understand modern video games is to focus on what they feel like to the people who play them and to reflect on what the significance of that feeling responses might be in the contemporary cultural context. 
• Taking an aesthetic approach to video games is made more complicated by the fact that everyone who writes about them already accepts that they have aesthetic properties and there is even some consensus that these properties matter and should inform our assessment of the medium as a whole as well as of individual games.

13.

• Geoff King and Tanya Krzywinska, for example, suggest that much gameplay is motivated simply by the search for 'visual pleasures', writing at one point that players may find aesthetic pleasures simply from 'the quality of graphical resolution alone' (King and Krzywinska 2006: 130). But what makes a visual experience pleasurable? On what basis do we separate the visual aspects of an experience that also includes other sensory components and questions concern aesthetic structure and it is in answering them that the resources of classical aesthetic theory are useful. 
• ... the concepts of play and form take us beyond a superficial characterisation of visual pleasure towards an appreciation of the whole experience of gameplay in terms of how it feels to players. 

15.

• This book argues that the relation between games and art is an important key to understanding either of them properly in the current period. Video games inherit certain of their key properties, especially form, from an art world that has to some extent absented itself from important areas of experience. 

17.

• Video games go not have to 'mean' anything to be popular and their popularity can be intelligible without reference to interpretation. This does not mean we should ignore the contents of on-screen imagery or what that imagery might represent or signify in some contexts. 

19.

• The term 'gameplay' is often used by rarely defined. As commonly employed it refers to the game dynamics, or more simply, 'how it feels to play a game'. Although this feeling is influenced by a game's audio and visual aspects, gameplay is usually considered a consequence of the game's rules rather than its representation. 
• Using this definition, we can say that the gameplay of chess is deliberative and [sic] while the gameplay of Burnout 3 is frantic and easily accessible. 

23.

• Aesthetic experience occurs when we find that something is pleasing to us by virtue of its form. Such an object stimulates us in the sense that it provokes and incites a feeling response, but it does so in a way that goes beyond merely being pleasing to the eye. 
• In aesthetic experience, which for Kant is almost exclusively about natural beauty, we find our imagination is pitched against our understanding- we can't discern 'order and finality' in the object but not its purpose. 

24.

• ... the human disposition to play is at the heart of the human creative response to being cast adrift in a meaningless universe. It it is not meaningful in itself, play is the activity that makes meaning possible by spinning forms out of the darkness. 
• ... play has intrinsic rhythm and harmony (1950: 10) and it is present as a kind of beating pulse in the sciences as well as the arts. 
• ... play is associated with contests and with representation, sometimes taking the form of role play. Play always goes on within what Huizinga calls a 'magic circle'; a specifically delineated zone where the normal conversations of social life are placed on hold and the rules of play (however minimal) are given free reign. 

25.

• The importance of play here lies in its foundational role for our ontological security and subsequently personal identity, because it is here that we first gain a sense of ourselves as agents who can act on the world and who must, in turn, adapt ourselves to its reality. 

26.

• ... the video game can be seen as a kind of stand-in for the parent, later the friend, with whom the subject constructs this precarious sense of a self grounded in transitional phenomena. Play here is based on a kid of formlessness that precedes both ego development and a secure sense of reality. This pre-ontological domain is one that we have to play our way out of in order to secure a sense of ourselves and to learn about the world. 
• Fantasy is an excess of imagination. Eve n short of delusion it can impede our ability to process external reality properly and inhibit the development of our inner personality. 

32.

• Aesthetic theory is concerned with understanding how it is that human beings find some situations, objects or artefacts attractive, or even beautiful. 
• Video games merit the concern that has been reserved for such items not because they are beautiful or 'art' but rather because they exist in a very specific tension with beauty and art, editing into the field of tensions that define the artwork and position it in relation to other social elements, and this incursion is essential to understanding them. 

48.

• ... ludology correctly identifies what is essential to the video games as a cultural object, namely, its character as a form of structured play. At the same time, however, the discussion here acknowledges the importance of meaning-oriented video game analyses, which have forced ludology to reflect on the differences between traditional games and their modern, digital variant. 
• Video games are more than games in the traditional sense. However, scholars who emphasise the story element in games jump the gun when they assert that attention to meaning and to the story-telling dimension of video games is the correct way to address the deficit in ludology's approach. 

50.

• Scholars who understand well how film works, for example, find that video games seem a lot like films except that the audience participate in determining what happens in the on-screen drama. 
• This active role for audiences can be called interactivity since it seems to reflect a new responsiveness on the part of the medium and implies a degree of complexity that makes the media object more like an interlocutor or co-participant and less like a finished work to be apprehended contemplatively.

54.

• ... Jesper Juul repudiated narrative theory's application to video games on the grounds that this theory introduces a temporal discrepancy that is essential to all reading but not present when playing video games. In narrative theory it is the difference between the time of narrating and that of the events narrated that is all-important. 
• According to Gerard Genette, for example, the temporality of a written text always involves a 'metonymic displacement' (Genette 1980: 34) whereby we, as readers, allow the false time of the story to stand in for the true time it takes us to read it. 
• This discrepancy between the time of reading and that of the events narrated is essential to the process of meaning-interpretation as it constitutes a kind of space where the reader interrogates and reflects on what she is reading. 
• The idea that games 'tell stories' is simply compatible with the reality that they are played in a singular time:
• In a verbal narrative, the grammatical tense will necessarily present a temporal relation between the time of the narration (narrative time) and the events told (story time). Additionally, it is possible to talk of a third time, the reading or viewing time...
• ... the game constructs the story time as synchronous with narrative time and reading/viewing time: the story time is now. Now, not just in the sense that the viewer witnesses events now... 

55.

• ... but in the sense that events are happening now, and that what comes next is not determined. (Juul 2001: 13-14) 

61.

• ... Kucklich presumes a strong role here for interpretative meaning in these processes, especially fictional meaning. The problem he raises it that sustained activity applied to a game seems to require a narrative or meaning element to explain why players seek to effect the relevant state transitions. 
• ... identification with character and immersion in some kind of storyline seem to be needed, to mediate, or explain the extra-ludic player activities- the things they do that do not fall under the lusory attitude. 
• Meaning based explanations would situate their play in a larger, fictional or social setting and would explain their involvement in all of its aspects. 
• Kucklick's point is that player activities, including... 

62.

• ... perhaps even subversion of the game's projected or advertised narrative context, must be meaningful for peopel and these meanings must play some explanatory role. 
• The fact that video games commonly include filmic and textual elements counts strongly in favour of such an analysis. 
• In the move between game states players' attention does move to extra-ludic reflection but their activities involve actions need to be understood as integral to the video game form as whole. Alexander Galloway usefully characterises non-story related actions as 'form playing with other forms... a play within the various layers of the video game' (Galloway 2006: 36). In this multi-layered play the human element must switch between discrete... 

63.

• ... sets of rules, each bearing different kinds of relation to meaning, including some movements and activities that have no significance at all, captured nicely in Galloway's phrase, 'multiple vectors of agitation' (2006: 38). 

75.

• Max Payne is an object with a distinctive feel, or aesthetic and this determines its character as an experience for players. At the centre of this is a feeling of expectation or anticipation that is worked and reworked by the tensions and releases of play- exactly what, for Ranciere (2007), connects the various experiences of form in the aesthetic regime of art. 
• The element of repetition is the clearest illustration of the importance of rhythm to the medium. Distinct types of action repeat and recur throughout the course of Max Payne. 
• When it happens you can assume a different attitude, namely, that of poking around, exploring the game situation to see what you are supposed to do next. Exploring, righting and watching correspond to feelings of tension, excitement and relaxation in the body of the player. 
• They define the rhythm of incorporation specific to Max Payne- different games have different rhythms. 

77.

• In video games the action and the intensities of experience are much more like music in being relatively detached from these elements, to such an extent that we often need cut-scenes to remind us where we (our characters) are supposed to be in the game's overall 'story'. 
• Such is the extent to which we are concentrated on play, its 'feel' and dynamics, and such is the narrowing of our focus onto game elements as signs not in a narrative story, but of the need to perform this move or that. 

79.

• Diderot's paradox, is a much discussed idea from theatre studies and concerns the actor's assumption of a role to which they must appear to be thoroughly committed if they want to carry the sentiments of the audience. The paradox is that they can only achieve this appearance through concentrated attention to something else (namely, the performance itself). 
• While an actor must know feelings intimately and express them sincerely to produce them in an audience, he cannot achieve this goal by sincerely expressing those feelings on stage but must have recourse to artifice. 
• The best actors are not the ones who actually feel what their character is supposed to be feeling. 
• This applies very much to games, who cannot identify too strongly with their characters, since they have to master the playing of the game. It illustrates a fundamental aesthetic problem with the idea of a straightforward (tension and paradox free) immersion in virtual space and fictional role play.

Research from 'Human Motion Based on Actor Physique Using Motion Capture' by Jong Sze Joon

Basic Details:

JONG, S. J. (2008), Human Motion Based on Actor Physique Using Motion Capture, Germany: VDM Publishing.

2.

• Motion Capture (Mocap) has some very useful applications for many types of users. Its purpose is not simply to duplicate the movements of an actor, as some people have naively stated (Trager, 1994). By employing specific Mocap application, this research studies realistic human motion of various subject with different physical attributes.
• Every individual has his/her own pattern of movement based on the nature of his/her physique, and yet every repetitive movement is always different in a slightly distinct manner.
• If a repetitive motion cycle of a particular individual can be sampled, it is clear that every time the cycle is repeated, the exact same algorithm of movement will not be achieved. For instance, when a person swings his hand from up to down and repeats the motion for a few times, the duration, velocity, angle, distance and level of the each swing are different.
• These subtle nuances in every biological motion serve as the essence to define realistic motion. It illuminates the identity of the person's behavioural pattern thus providing ideal characteristics that distinguishes every other individual.
• According to Pullen (2002), the term 'Motion Capture' generally refers to any method for obtaining data that describes the motion of a human or animal. 
• As the availability of Mocap data has increased, there has been more and more interest in using it as a basis  for creating computer animations where life-like motion is required.
• There are still various difficulties that arise based on its application, such as the question of the accuracy of the capture data and how much artificial data is filled in during the "clean up" process.

2-3.

• There are other cases whereby human motion data is not suitable to be applied to a non-human character. As a result, the art of keyframe animation is still being practiced.

3.

• Mocap is perhaps the most widely used technique for acquiring realistic motion. Recent production of feature films such as King Kong, The Matrix trilogy, Star Wars, The Polar Express and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, to name a few, employ Mocap techniques.
• Hyper-realistic virtual Computer-generated (CG) characters will be an element of the future of digital storytelling.
• One of the highest demands of Mocap is the gaming industry.
• Mocap is used to create 3D character animation and natural simulations in a performance oriented way.
• Mocap is also known as "Performance Animation".
• Its sole purpose is not simply to duplicate the movements of an actor or animator, but also as a process of taking and recording a human's emotion.

4.

• According to White (1986) and Ratner (2003), a similar technique, which is commonly used in animation production, called "Rotoscoping", was later invented in 1915 by Max Fleischer, a cartoonist; in an attempt to automate the production of animated cartoons by painstakingly traced the image of the live-action movement and captured film frame by frame onto paper in his series "Out of the Inkwell".
• In the early 20th century, this technique was used in traditional 2D cell animation by animators who traced individual frames of film to create individual frames of drawn animation.
• Later in 1930's Walt Disney and his animators employed it carefully and very effectively in 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs', 'Sleeping Beauty' and other animated feature-films. The technique has since developed into automated tracking functions, mostly within compositing softwares.
• In the mid 1980's, the type of Mocap used was really an extension of rotoscoping where an actor's movements were filmed from more than one view.
• Markers were attached to the subject and visible on the film, and were then manually encoded as corresponding points on the 3D representation of the character in the computer. This process is called 'Photogammetry'.
• Even though rotoscoping and Mocap are based on the same principles, the execution of the two is different. In the case of rotoscoping, artists trace human motion but interpret it with the model of the animated character.
• In the case of Mocap, human motion is copied and the data is directly applied to the animated character.

4-5.

• The temptation to use this captured motion and call it "animation" has led computer animators who practiced the art of traditional animation to regard Mocap as "Satan's Rotoscope" or "Devil's Rotoscope" (a term widely used by many though attributed to Steph Greenberg, 2000)

5.

• Mocap is now globally projected more into Computer Generated character animation. Basically, the Mocap system enables the animator to record the precise movement of a human subject in time and space for immediate or delayed analysis and playback, which can later be modified and applied to an existing 3D character model in any 3D platform.
• However, no matter how advanced the technology, the most important thing about Mocap is the actor's ability to act.
• This is supported by Grifter's (2000) statement that animation is not only about the timing, weight and 'character' of the motion; it is about acting and performance. This is one of the main reasons Mocap is regarded as 'Performance Animation'.
• From a more subjective point of view, White (1986) and Williams (2001) remarked that the goal of animation is not to create human-like motion, but to impart unique personalities to animated characters, to give them the "illusion of life".
• Both rotoscope and Mocap impose human motion on animated characters, which make them seem subtle and lifeless in comparison to those animated or hand-keyframed by skilled artists.
• This is because actors cannot break the law of reality and physics to fill in the Principles of Animation applied in a keyframe animation.

6.

• Mocap is used for games production, television, film production and education.
• Industry is increasingly depending on Mocap to produce fast yet realistic animation for their characters.
• The demand on gaming and feature-films enabled animation companies to allocate sufficient budget to apply Motion Capture application into their production.
• Mocap technology is frequently used in digital puppetry systems to aid in the performance of Computer-Generated characters in real-time.

7.

• In spite of the limitations, Mocap seems to have a positive response in the local animation industry and most likely the usage of Mocap will increase in the near future. This theory is subject to change based on the job market of the industry.

8.

• Most animators are often particularly concerned about the subtle detail such as slight nuances within a character's motion. This is because the nuances often define the level of realism in animation.
• Most key-frame methods practiced are difficult to achieve realistic motion due to the interpolation variables of tweening between keys.
• Realistic motions performed by human do not translate by those type of curves in animation.

9.

• Increased interest in using the information in Mocap data to assist animators in the creation of a character's base motion. If the animator required additional predefined movements for the character sets, the base data can be reduced or retargeted using a standard 3D application.

10.

• When adapting data to virtual characters, the animation will look more realistic in the sense that proper weight allocation manages the movements of the character.

39.

• The prominent twelve Principles of Animation by animators Thomas and Johnston (1981) serve as a fundamental guideline to most of animators, traditional cell animators, computer animators, or even Mocap animators.
• The Mocap animators, however, use these principles at different occasions throughout the animation process and in different ways than the other animators.
• A Mocap animator should consider the methods of application upon certain principles within the animation process. There are three distinct points within the process, the preparation stage, the capture session itself, and the post processing stage.
• Squash and Stretch: This is the first principle that cannot be achieved by a performer. Some people have attempted to add this property to captured motion data either by hand or procedurally, but the results have not been promising.

40.

• Timing: The performance, whether animated or acted, has to have the right timing to convey the necessary perception.
• Anticipation: A good performer can show anticipation to a certain degree, but is limited by the law of physics.
• Staging: A principle of filmmaking in general, the layout of the scene and positioning of the camera and characters are equally important in animation and live action performance.
• Follow-through and overlapping action: The opposite of anticipation.
• Straight-ahead action and pose-to-pose action: In computer animation, most of the characters' motions are created using a variation of the pose-to-pose action method, creating key poses for different parts instead of posing the whole character at a particular frame. This is done by creating keyframes and letting the software produce the in-between frames by some kind of interpolation defined by the animator.

41.

• Motion Capture is completely straight-ahead action; as such, it generates keyframes at every frame. This makes it very difficult to modify. Pose-to-pose action can be achieved through Motion Capture by selecting significant keyframes, deleting the rest, and allowing the computer to do the in-between as before.
• Ease-in and ease-out: Principles are based on real-world physics, so they can easily be achieved by capturing the motion of a live performance.
• Arcs: Another principle aimed at emulating realistic movement, which can be represented as a set of different types of arcs. When using keyframe animation, these curves are usually smooth between keyframes. With motion data, however, they are coarse and noisy, representing the natural nuances of realistic motion.
• Secondary motion: Secondary motion represents a lot of extra work with keyframe animation, whereas with Mocap it is a part of the performance. One has to be able to collect it, however, which may not be captured by an Optical system if markers are added to the clothes, but an electromagnetic tracker or electromechanical suit would not be able to collect that kind of data easily.

42.

• Exaggeration: The principle of exaggeration implies approaching or crossing the boundaries of physical reality in order to enhance or dramatise the character's performance. We must decide if capturing a live performance would be acceptable, or even feasible, for the level of exaggeration needed.
• Appeal: This principle applies for both live action and animation.
• Personality: When using Mocap, this is the number one reason to use a talented performer, as opposed to just anybody who can move.